Court of Appeal Reject Police Attempts to Weaken Accountability For Use of Force

London: Officer who shot Jermaine Baker will face proceedings for gross misconduct

The Court of Appeal has today given important clarification of the test to be applied when determining whether police officers’ use of force will amount to misconduct. It has confirmed that where an officer claims to have made an honest mistake that he faced imminent danger, the force used in response may amount to misconduct if that belief was unreasonable.

 The case arose out of the death of Jermaine Baker, who was fatally shot by a Metropolitan police officer on 11 December 2015. Jermaine was unarmed and the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) concluded that the officer who fired the shot, known as W80, may have a case to answer for gross misconduct and should face proceedings on the basis that a misconduct panel could find that W80’s belief that Jermaine was reaching for a firearm was unreasonable. The IOPC directed the MPS to bring those proceedings.

 W80 brought a judicial review challenging that direction. He was successful in the High Court, which quashed the IOPC direction on the basis that the IOPC had applied the wrong test and that the test that applies in misconduct proceedings is the same as that in criminal proceedings, i.e. that the belief in the threat need only be honest and not reasonable. The Court of Appeal has now overturned that decision following an appeal by the IOPC. Jermaine’s family were an interested party in the appeal and supported the appeal. This decision means that W80 will now face proceedings for gross misconduct. It also gives important clarification of the standard against which all police officers in the country will be judged when they use force which they claim was necessary in self-defence or defence of another.

Read more: INQUEST, https://is.gd/Ijqt4L