Met Police officer Martyn Blake who shot Chris Kaba dead is CLEARED of murder

Metropolitan Police officer Martyn Blake has been cleared of murdering Chris Kaba who was fatally shot in Streatham, south-east London, on September 5, 2022.

Blake, 40, shot the 24-year-old through the front windscreen of an Audi Q8 after identifying the vehicle as one that had been used as a getaway car in a shooting the night prior. The car was hemmed in by police cars in Kirkstall Gardens after an officer recognised its registration number. A helicopter and six police cars were involved in the stop.

Kaba knew he was being followed, telling pal Elisha Fizul: "Lish, one sec, I think there is police behind me." In footage played in court, armed officers were heard shouting "go, go, go" and "armed police, get out of the f***ing car," as they surrounded the vehicle.

Kaba drove backwards and forwards trying to ram his way free, which Mr Blake told jurors made him believe one of his colleagues was about to die, and so he opened fire to stop the car.

Kaba was unarmed with no weapons in his car, and also had both hands on the steering wheel when he was shot in the head. He died in hospital the following morning. The construction worker was just months away from becoming a father when he was shot, and his death prompted a number of protests, particularly among London's Black communities.

A fellow firearms officer known as DS87 said he too would have fired if Mr Blake had not, while another, identified by the cypher E156 said he was "fractions of a second" away from doing the same.

Another officer, NX109, got the finger of his glove caught in the Audi's door handle and managed to wrench it free just before it moved forward - telling the jury he thought he would be dragged between it and a Tesla parked nearby.

Prosecutors argued that Mr Blake had misjudged the risk, gave a "false" and "exaggerated" account when he said Kaba used his car as a weapon, and deliberately aimed at Kaba's head, all of which he denied. In his defence, jurors heard a series of glowing testimonials from colleagues and senior officers.

Prosecutors had also alleged that the shooting was not “not necessary”, while Blake maintained that he had feared for his life. Defence barrister Patrick Gibbs KC said Mr Blake was no "RoboCop" with the "nanosecond" reactions of a computer. He told jurors: "He is not a robot, he is a human being with a human brain who did this to the best of his ability."

Police watchdog the Independent Office for Police Conduct will now consider whether Mr Blake should face a disciplinary hearing.

In an initial account to his superiors, Blake said: "I had a genuine belief that either of us could be killed and moved right out of the way. The driver then rammed our car, which was behind me as well as a parked car and stopped, wedged.

"Seeing the car was stopped I went round to the front and again challenged the driver saying something like, 'Armed police, stop the vehicle', at this point the driver reversed back at great speed as fast as he could, directly towards my colleagues who were out on foot approaching the vehicle.

"The male had already shown a propensity to use violence and was happy to use any means to escape and I had a genuine held belief that one or many of my colleagues could be killed by the car, and that the driver would not stop his attempt to escape at any cost.

"I then made the decision to incapacitate the driver due to the imminent threat to my colleagues and took one aimed shot at the driver. He immediately slumped and the car stopped.”

Jurors were told Blake said he felt "at grave risk of serious injury by virtue of the ramming of our vehicle and could easily have been killed due to the ferocity of the impact of the Audi moving forward".

The case has raised questions about the use of firearms and how officers are held to account in fatal shootings, with dozens of Mr Blake's colleagues downing tools when he was first charged with murder. Police bosses raised concerns that officers would no longer be willing to volunteer to take on firearms training due to the levels of scrutiny that they could face if they had to take a fatal shot.

Mr Blake had never fired a gun at a human being, or seen a gun fired at a human being, before the night Mr Kaba died. The jury heard that those close to Mr Blake had been hesitant about him becoming a police marksman but that he felt it was "the best job" in the Metropolitan Police.

Official figures show that in England and Wales in the year to March 2023 there were 18,395 police firearms operations. Police weapons were deliberately fired at 10 of these incidents, resulting in three fatalities.