Latest News About England: Azelle Rodney shooting: police marksman loses high court challenge

jueves, 27 de febrero de 2014

Azelle Rodney shooting: police marksman loses high court challenge

Judges reject challenge by officer, known only as E7, that unlawful killing verdict was 'irrational and unsustainable'

A police marksman has lost his high court bid to challenge a public inquiry finding that he used excessive force when he killed robbery suspect Azelle Rodney.

The officer, known only as E7, argued the finding was "irrational and unsustainable".

He asked two judges for permission to seek judicial review of conclusions reached by the inquiry chairman, Sir Christopher Holland, that Rodney was unlawfully killed – a finding E7's lawyers describe as "tantamount to murder".

Sir Brian Leveson, president of the Queen's bench division, sitting with Mr Justice Irwin at London's high court, ruled on Thursday, there was "no value in granting permission" and refused the application.

E7 shot 24-year-old Rodney in Edgware, north London, in April 2005 when officers stopped the car in which he was travelling with two other men.

The officer opened fire within a second of coming to a halt beside the trio's Golf, hitting Rodney six times, once each in the arm and back, and fatally four times in the head.

Samantha Leek QC, representing E7, told the high court at a hearing earlier this month that the Metropolitan police service was in possession of reliable intelligence that the men in the car were in possession of machine guns and were on their way to rob Colombian drug dealers. Firearms officers were tasked to intercept them.

E7's justification for firing was that he "honestly believed" Rodney had picked up and was preparing to fire a machine gun capable of firing 1,000 rounds per minute.

Holland, a high court judge, rejected the claim and found in a report last July that E7 used excessive force.

The marksman's key ground for seeking judicial review was that it was irrational for Holland to find that E7 did not have an honest belief that Rodney had "picked up the weapon and was about to use it".

Dismissing the point as "unarguable", Leveson said: "The hurdle of proving that Sir Christopher reached irrational conclusions on the facts is incapable of being surmounted."

E7 could face a criminal trial over Rodney's death. Scotland Yard backed his application for judicial review.

Following a three-month public inquiry into Rodney's death, Holland found: "There was no lawful justification for shooting Azelle Rodney so as to kill him."

He went on: "E7's accounts of what he saw are not to be accepted. Prior to firing he did not believe that the man who turned out to be Azelle Rodney had picked up a gun and was about to use it. Further, on the basis of what he was able to see, he could not rationally have believed that."

Susan Alexander, Rodney's mother, called for the CPS to now make an urgent decision on bringing criminal charges against E7.

Her solicitor Daniel Machover, from law firm Hickman and Rose, said she welcomed "today's clear decision by the high court to reject E7's legal challenge as without merit".

Machover said: "E7, who retired from the Metropolitan police service just a few months after killing Azelle Rodney, has used valuable court time and taxpayers' money on his 'unarguable' legal challenge. A line must be drawn under this."

Helen Shaw, co-director of campaign group Inquest, said: "We welcome this ruling which re-confirms the inquiry's unequivocal finding that the killing of Azelle Rodney was unlawful.

"The CPS must now come to a decision regarding a prosecution as a matter of priority - Susan Alexander cannot be expected to endure further delays in a legal process that has already lasted nine years."