R (Duggan) v North London Assistant Deputy Coroner
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Sir Terence Etherton Mr,Lord Justice Davis,Lord Justice Underhill |
| Judgment Date | 29 March 2017 |
| Neutral Citation | [2017] EWCA Civ 142 |
| Docket Number | Case No: C1/2014/3959,C1/2014/3959 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 29 March 2017 |
and
[2017] EWCA Civ 142
Sir Terence Etherton, Mr
Lord Justice Davis
and
Lord Justice Underhill
Case No: C1/2014/3959
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION, DIVISIONAL COURT
THE PRESIDENT OF THE QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION,
LORD JUSTICE BURNETT AND
HIS HONOUR JUDGE PETER THORNTON Q.C.
CO8332014
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Hugh Southey QC and Adam Straw (instructed by Birnberg Peirce & Partners) for the Appellant
Ashley Underwood QC (instructed by Philippa Long on behalf of the Treasury Solicitor) for the Respondent
Hugo Keith QC and Sarah Le Fevre (instructed by Hugh Giles, Director of Legal Services, Metropolitan Police Service) for the 1 st Interested Party
Clare Montgomery QC and David Patience (instructed by Scott Ingram, Slater and Gordon) for the 3 rd Interested Party
Hearing date: 2 nd March 2017
Approved Judgment
Sir Terence Etherton Mr, Lord Justice Davis,
This appeal concerns the adequacy of the directions given to the jury by the coroner at the inquest into the death of Mark Wayne Duggan. Mr Duggan was shot dead by a police officer, known at the inquest as V53, on 4 August 2011.
V53 asserted at the inquest that he acted in lawful self-defence. The jury reached the conclusion that Mr Duggan's death was the result of "lawful killing". The appellant, Pamela Duggan ("Mrs Duggan"), who is Mr Duggan's mother, claims that by virtue of the failure of the coroner to give proper directions that conclusion should be quashed.
The appeal to this court is from the order of the Divisional Court dated 14 October 2014 dismissing Mrs Duggan's claim for judicial review.
The background to the inquest
Mr Duggan's death occurred in a police operation. That operation was intelligence led. It was based upon information that Mr Duggan was transporting a firearm across London. The minicab in which he was being driven was stopped in Ferry Lane, London, by armed police officers. It was 18:12.43 on 4 August 2011. Within a few seconds he had been fatally injured. He was shot twice by V53.
Mr Duggan's death gave rise to substantial public disorder across the country.
In accordance with the law, an inquest was held into his death.
The Inquest
The inquest was held between 16 September 2013 and 9 January 2014. The Recorder of Winchester, His Honour Judge Cutler CBE, sat as the Assistant Deputy Coroner for the Northern District of Greater London ("the Coroner").
Ninety three witnesses gave oral evidence. The statements of a further twenty one witnesses were read.
The following summary of the evidence is taken from the judgment of the Divisional Court.
For some considerable time the police had targeted the activities of a gang known as Tottenham Man Dem, the senior members of which were either known or believed to have a propensity for extreme violence. Guns and ammunition had previously been recovered in earlier attempts to contain or prevent criminal activity. Intelligence was available to the effect that Mr Duggan (who had very little by way of criminal record) was a long-standing senior member of the gang who, some two weeks earlier, had been storing a Beretta handgun at his girlfriend's address. It was known that guns were sometimes carried in socks.
On the day of the fatal incident, there was further intelligence that a firearm was being moved across London and, more specifically, that Mr Duggan was carrying it in a minicab which was then under surveillance. This was the background to the decision to stop the minicab and recover the firearm.
The minicab was stopped using three police cars. The first (Alpha) cut in front of it forcing it to stop. The second (Bravo) came alongside the driver's side. The third (Charlie) pulled up behind it. Eleven firearms officers (being the Third Interested Party) were in these three vehicles, all of whom were given ciphers for the purposes of the inquest. A number left their cars. V53 (in the front passenger seat of Charlie) was one of the first, if not the first, officer to do so. He challenged Mr Duggan and within seconds of alighting from the car had shot him twice, one of those shots being fatal.
The evidence suggested that Mr Duggan had been sitting behind the driver in the back of the minicab and that he moved across the back seat before sliding open its door and then jumping out. V53's evidence was that Mr Duggan was holding a gun, contained in a sock which he was pointing in his direction. His evidence can be summarised by saying that he was one hundred per cent sure that Mr Duggan had a gun and that there was no room for mistake: his focus was "just glued on the gun and what that gun is going to do to me". He described how the first round had impacted on Mr Duggan causing "like a flinching movement" such that "the gun has now moved and is pointing in my direction". He was "absolutely" clear that Mr Duggan "had that gun in his hand while [he] fired both shots". He agreed that, if there was no gun in Mr Duggan's hand, he would have had no justification to shoot him saying: "I would have no justification but secondly, sir, I wouldn't have fired". He was emphatic throughout his evidence:
"It is 804 days since this happened and I'm 100% convinced he was in possession of a gun on shot one and shot two."
Other officers on the scene gave evidence of what they perceived. W70 said that he saw a gun shaped object in Mr Duggan's hand (which he described as a self loading pistol). He came to the conclusion that because of Mr Duggan's movements, he posed a threat such that had he been pointing his gun at him at that time, he believed he would have fired. R68 said that Mr Duggan appeared to be pulling something out of the waistband of his trousers but he did not see a gun. V59 gave similar evidence. R68 said that Mr Duggan's right arm was across his body inside his jacket towards the left hand side of his waistband at the relevant time and that he appeared to be pulling something out of his trousers.
W42 saw Mr Duggan framed in the doorway of the minicab, with his right hand tucked inside his jacket out of view, prompting him to shout "Show me your hands". When Mr Duggan turned and W42 was standing behind him, W42 saw his right elbow move outwards prompting him to shout "He's reaching, he's reaching". V53 fired a shot at Mr Duggan when his colleague W42 was in the line of fire behind him; the bullet penetrated Mr Duggan and also struck W42. There was evidence that firearms officers are trained to avoid the risk that a fellow officer might be struck by a round they had fired (which it was argued supported the inference that V53 would not have fired unless he honestly believed that Mr Duggan posed an imminent risk to life).
Nobody gave evidence of seeing the gun being thrown by anyone. That gun was a Bruni pistol, a substantial and heavy weapon. It was found about 7.5 metres from the minicab door and five metres from where Mr Duggan fell. Its muzzle was in a sock. The gun was forensically linked to a box that was still in the minicab, which also had Mr Duggan's fingerprint on it. There was medical evidence which indicated that he could not have thrown it after he was shot. The medical evidence also suggested that at the time he was shot in the chest (the fatal shot) Mr Duggan was leaning forward at an angle of at least 30 degrees. The other shot hit Mr Duggan's arm but the forensic evidence was unable to establish in which order the shots were fired. On one view, the forensic science evidence adduced at the inquest cast significant doubt on the account given by V53.
The question whether a police officer had been responsible for placing the gun on the grass was explored at the inquest, but rejected by the jury.
Witness B lived in a flat which was on the ninth floor of a nearby building. In his evidence at the inquest he explained that he heard the screech of tyres and immediately went to his window to see what was going on. He described seeing Mr Duggan run from the minicab in the direction of Tottenham Hale station before being confronted by a police officer from Alpha car. He then ran in the opposite direction towards Blackhorse Lane and was confronted by V53 and other officers. Witness B said there was a mobile phone or BlackBerry in Mr Duggan's right hand, which was still in his hand when he fell. He described what he saw as an "execution". There was no reason why Mr Duggan was shot. He agreed that he had heard officers shouting something which may have been "put it down" or "get down".
Witness B's evidence to the inquest was controversial not least because there was evidence that he had also spoken in different terms to a BBC journalist, Witness C, on two occasions after the incident and before the inquest. The journalist gave evidence of what Witness B had told him, and Witness B was questioned about what Witness C had recorded in contemporaneous notes at the time of those conversations.
In notes of the conversation which took place on 12 April 2012 Witness B was recorded as saying he heard the words "put it down, put it down" being shouted and also noticed the BlackBerry. There was a split-second between the shouting and the shots being fired. He used the expression that it was "an execution" and also said that he did not trust the police because he had been stopped and searched "all the time". In notes of the second conversation...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
B50 v HM Asst Coroner for E Riding of Yorkshire and Kingston Upon Hull
...as he believed them to be, in accordance with the principles set out in R (Duggan) v North London Assistant Deputy Coroner [2017] 1 WLR 2199, R v Beckford [1988] 1 AC 130 and s.76 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, all of which establish a subjective 68 The Family submits th......
-
R Officer W80 v Director General of the Independent Office for Police Conduct
...a relevant consideration.” ([76] of the judgment of the Court of Appeal (Sir Terence Etherton MR, Davis LJ and Underhill LJ) in Duggan [2017] EWCA Civ 142; [2017] 1 WLR 2199. Accordingly, as Mr Stern QC submitted, the criminal law test is far more nuanced than Mr Owen QC 71 Fourth, the Co......
-
R (on the application of Maughan) v HM Senior Coroner for Oxfordshire
...person thought to be responsible, criminal law concepts applied: see, for example, R (Duggan) v North London Assistant Deputy Coroner[2017] 1 WLR 2199, [2017] Inquest LR 142. Moreover, the Court of Appeal was bound by the decision in McCurbin to hold that the criminal standard applied. 85. ......
-
The Queen (on the application of Maughan) v HM Senior Coroner for Oxfordshire
...taken it that, in unlawful killing cases, the applicable standard of proof is the criminal standard. For example, in R (Duggan) v North London Assistant Deputy Coroner [2017] EWCA Civ 142, [2017] 1 WLR 2199, the decision proceeded on the footing that the requirements (in the context of th......