Lawful Killing: Mark Duggan

Operation Dibri,

as some of you may know, is a long-running Trident

investigation into the activities of the Tottenham Mandem, the TMD.

There is intelligence to suggest that Mark Duggan is currently

in possession or control of about three firearms and he's

looking to take possession of a firearm perhaps this evening

and he's been trying to do it for a few days.

Strict reminder for the firearms officers. Listen in, guys.

A firearm is to be fired only as a last resort.

Other methods must have been tried and failed.

Taxi, yeah?

So, what? Like, what, just wait there, yeah? All right, cool.

-What's going on?

-All right?

-Go easy.

-Yeah.

Boss man, Tottenham, yeah?

We're on him.

Thanks. Thanks. OK.

Duggan confirmed in possession of a firearm. On my team, go.

SIRENS WAIL

Strike! Strike! Strike!

Armed police! Armed police! He's reaching! He's reaching!

GUNFIRE

OFFICER SHOUTING

SHOUTING ECHOES

Where's the gun? Where's the gun?!

-Medi pack!

-SIRENS WAIL

The police shooting of Mark Duggan in August 2011 triggered

the worst riots in modern British history.

People died in those riots,

so that's one thing that absolutely raises

the Duggan shooting up above others.

There is still no agreement about what actually happened when

Duggan was stopped by armed police on that summer's day.

That three to five seconds of history

has far too many different versions

for anyone to say one version is any truer than another version.

An inquest jury decided that Mark Duggan was not holding

a gun when he was shot, but that it was a lawful killing because the

officer who fired honestly believed there was a gun in his hand.

The body that investigates the police, the IPCC,

found that Mark Duggan was holding a gun, but that

he was throwing it as he was shot.

There's even less agreement about who Mark Duggan really was -

highly dangerous gangster or ordinary family man.

More than five years on, the story is wrapped up in secret

intelligence, the existence of which cannot even be acknowledged,

leading to a suspicion that the truth is being hidden.

If it was a member of my family that had been shot

and the answer from the official body investigating was, "Well,

"we know the answer but we can't tell you," yeah, I would find that

incredibly frustrating and I wouldn't trust it either.

The whole function of intelligence

must be the prevention of crime and the prevention

of death, if at all possible, so it seems to me

these are vital questions that have remained unanswered.

Something is amiss here, something's not quite right here,

so what is the truth?

This film tries to get closer to the truth through personal

testimony and official records.

..Two-two. Duggan in the car.

Dramatised scenes are based on what is known about the movements

of Mark Duggan and the police who were tracking him over

the 24 hours leading up to the shooting.

The Metropolitan Police chose not to participate in the making of

this film, but we hear the officers' own words by dramatising

their inquest transcripts.

The people here are still very animated about it,

they're still passionate.

What's driving them on to keep fighting for Mark Duggan?

They have no alternative.

We went to an inquest and we heard the police's accounts,

we heard their version and subsequent to that inquest,

we've found out lots more that throws real doubt on their account.

The first phone call I got, I was told that the police

on Ferry Lane had shot a young black guy who had come out of a car,

armed, and was pointing his gun to shoot it at them.

My instant response was, "That's tough, isn't it?

"But you play by the sword, you die by the sword.

"If you're crazy enough to draw a gun and go and attack

"the police officers and they shoot you and kill you, oh, well."

Ladies and gents, I'm Zulu 51,

I'm a DI from Trident and we're all here today on Operation Dibri.

The date is Wednesday, 3rd August,

and the time by my watch is ten minutes past six in the evening.

Trident, a Metropolitan Police unit tasked with tackling gun crime,

was then over two years in to a long-running operation

codenamed Dibri.

Operation Dibri, it was really...

It was an operation that was tackling

an organised criminal network,

organised criminal gang known as TMD.

In more layman's terms, it's Tottenham Mandem.

They were involved of the supply of firearms or use of firearms

and drugs, the supply of class A drugs.

As well as that, they would be involved in

a number of murders and attempted murders and conflicts with other

organised criminal gangs which... from opposing areas, basically.

We received daily briefings that the TMD had been involved in

numerous fatal and non-fatal shootings,

kidnappings, the supply of class A drugs

within London and they had been involved in stops

where they've actually made determined attempts

to escape, discarded firearms.

They've been very surveillance-aware and so on.

There are a large number of subjects and associates on this operation.

There are, I think, six that have been put on the briefing for

tonight who may become relevant for tonight or for the rest of the week.

'My job was really as a detective sergeant on the proactive team,'

the day-to-day running of my team

and receiving and assessing intelligence

and running the day-to-day response to that intelligence,

working to Mr Foote, the SIO.

If I come back to Mark Duggan,

the picture on there is quite a good likeness.

He's got a baby mother with ... children who live at ...

which is just off ...

He does frequent that address on a daily basis.

Operation Dibri had been implemented before I'd attended Trident

or deployed to Trident

and during that time, I understand,

there was around 100 subjects that were part of that through research,

but the core, if you like,

of that group were around 48 members

and they were considered the most violent people in London

and not only in London, but outside London,

stretching across to Europe because of the importation of drugs

and involvement in that aspect and they were closely linked

to Turkish criminal organisations as well.

There was the intriguing bit in the inquest where the cop said

he was on a list and he was

amongst the 48 most dangerous gangsters

in all of Europe, which seemed a remarkably precise number.

There is intelligence to suggest that Mark Duggan is currently

in possession or control of about three firearms

and that he's looking to take possession of a firearm

perhaps this evening.

He's been trying to do it for a few days.

The intelligence over that period, and historically,

was a clear indication

that Mr Duggan was involved in gun crime.

As well as gun crime, he was involved

in the supply of class A drugs and possession of ammunition as well.

All of those are obviously very serious crimes.

Mark Duggan had a criminal record for two minor convictions -

possession of cannabis and receiving stolen goods.

But intelligence held on the police national computer

and the Metropolitan Police's own systems

linked him to serious offences,

including suspicion of firing weapons

and arrests in connection with attempted murder and murder.

That intelligence was rated,

according to the police's own evaluation method,

which grades intelligence from A1, for a highly reliable source,

down to E5, which could be comparable

to something overheard in a pub.

So you'll have, for example, E,

pretty untested, unreliable, unknown,

and 4 or 5 would be.

It could be malicious, that type of grading, to sort of A1, A2,

like that, so it's sort of a letter and number system.

Does that make sense?

The only intelligence relating to Mark Duggan where the grading

was ever revealed was a report

that he had been in possession of a handgun.

That was graded as E4.

E4 sits quite low because it would be something

that's either untested, cannot-be-judged intelligence.

The grading of the other intelligence was never made public,

but by the summer of 2011,

Mark Duggan was under what the police call directed surveillance.

Directed surveillance means that that, you know, basically,

as a police state,

a law enforcement agency,

we have the powers to intrude on people's privacy,

and that comes under a legislation called RIPA,

the regulatory investigative police powers act.

The idea for that power is to allow us to conduct surveillance

on people, people that are involved in criminality.

My understanding of RIPA is pretty limited.

I'm just a lay person.

It is very difficult to get a deep understanding of it,

because the officials always say that they're not allowed to

speak about it, not allowed to speak about its existence,

and not allowed to tell you if RIPA legislation

is impacting on their investigation.

So, RIPA is the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.

So, they're bugging phones, they're using listening devices

if GCHQ is on you. These are things that we're not allowed

to have public discussion and debate about,

and officials are not allowed to even speak about it.

RIPA is the beginning of secret courts and secret legislation.

The RIPA intelligence on Mark Duggan was so secret

that an ordinary coroner couldn't share the inquest into his death.

Instead, a senior judge with high enough security clearance

to see the intelligence had to be appointed.

The picture of Mark Duggan painted by the police intelligence

was very different to that given by his family and friends.

This is a bike that Mark bought Kemani for his birthday.

And this is Mark on the bike.

I am Mark Duggan's baby-mother.

I have three children for him.

We started going out on my 16th birthday.

This is when Kahliya was born.

Ah, this is a good one. This is when Mark was getting a tattoo.

He was trying to pretend that it wasn't hurting him, but it was.

My first memories of Mark,

he used to have this big, curly Afro...

Big curly Afro.

I knew Mark from when he was born.

He grew up with my son.

He grew up in Broadwater Farm estate which, you know,

your kids played out, and everybody played together.

Mark rode with many young people

that he grew up with in the community.

They're all young kids growing up together.

Maybe one or two of them were a bit hyperactive,

but not to an extent where I would say

they were a danger to this community.

Even growing up,

he was, like, more into girls.

From an early age himself, he was into girls,

when he realised that he was cute. Everybody started to say,

"Oh, he's so cute!" He just went on a different one.

He was like, "Everybody fancies me."

All you hear is just from the media,

bad-mouthing the Broadwater Farm estate.

And it's totally not like that.

Everyone looks out for each other on that estate, and...

I had a good childhood there,

and I am proud to say that's where I come from.

But I always knew, from when I was a child, that...

How can I put it?

When I saw police, I knew it was trouble.

It's always the case of, the police are here. What are they here for?

They are coming to cause some form of trouble,

and that's how I saw it. That's how it's always been.

There's been a big, long-running theme over decades

about the police and their relationship

with the communities they serve.

We see a series of riots across urban Britain,

culminating in the Broadwater Farm riot in Tottenham in 1985.

Vicious, vicious rioting.

-NEWS REPORT:

-On the night of October 6th 1985,

500 policemen faced petrol bombs, bottles, bricks,

machetes, axes, knives and guns.

More than 200 were injured.

Police Constable Keith Blakelock was hacked to death.

The killing of PC Blakelock in the 1985 riot on Broadwater Farm

was perhaps the most traumatic single event in the recent history

of the Metropolitan Police.

Here was a, by all accounts,

exemplary community beat officer hacked to death

in the most savage circumstances, his head almost severed.

There were all sorts of myths and beliefs and ideologies

around that event, and then, when,

after a farce of an original trial, at which fabricated evidence

led to the wrongful conviction of three people,

this only added to the soreness of the wound that Tottenham and

Broadwater Farm represented within the Metropolitan Police Service.

So, this block here was Tangmere,

and up on the first floor was the mezzanine floor.

It's where the few supermarkets and shops,

resources, that were available to this estate were actually based.

PC Blakelock came to his end down there.

So, for the Metropolitan Police Service,

that's what makes this estate a symbolic location.

It's a symbolic location of the

conflict between black communities and the police.

It's a place where so many past wrongs,

past wounds on both sides are stored up.

It's the powder keg waiting for the piece of tinder.

That's the context that you have to put Mark Duggan's death into.

There's very few angels on Broadwater Farm.

I've walked those corridors many a time

and I've not bumped into an angel.

So, you get young people who come together,

and because they've grown on an identifiable estate,

they sometimes get territorial. "This is my area."

So they become crews. They're not gangs.

Gangs are structured organisations, with a hierarchy,

a leadership, where they all have the same objective,

normally it's about money.

These are groups of kids who create a bond,

and they create a camaraderie,

but they're not gangsters.

Do I know any Mr Bigs in the community?

Maybe. Maybe.

It definitely weren't Mark.

I'm eight years senior to Mark,

so I have seen a lot more gangs before his time.

If I go back, 2003,

'04, '05, now we're talking about

a different generation of Tottenham Mandem.

What was going on then was shootings, kidnappings, tortures.

These are men that were walking with firearms.

Crime was being done, shots were fired in the air, bah-bah-bah!

Everybody run. Nobody would tell the police nothing.

You told the police, you were liable to get shot tomorrow.

The Tottenham Mandem - dead, prison, in church, right now.

So, Mark and his little friends on Broadwater Farm that grew up there

and that have had to carry the burden of PC Blakelock

all these years, and been criminalised because that's

where they were born and grown,

being styled up, as now, Tottenham Mandem - they're not.

Mark grew up in the aftermath of the PC Blakelock killing,

but he didn't spend his whole childhood on the estate.

We used to go to school on Broadwater Farm.

When he went into the big school, he didn't settle.

He wasn't bad. He was just...not conforming.

The change in him wasn't positive, the way I saw it,

so, I was there one day and I just said to him,

"Wouldn't you like to come and live in Manchester for a while?"

And he just said yeah.

He took school a bit more seriously

and wanted to get grades.

Then he returned back to London.

When Mark went back to London, him and Semone got together,

and then it wasn't long before they moved in.

Mark had a shop on the Farm, Broadwater Farm estate,

selling clothes.

He also done, like, club promoting.

And that's how he made his money.

He did everything late. He never partied until he was in his 20s,

because he was 20 when they had Kemani.

So, he just wanted to be a family man.

He just wanted to have kids and have a proper family. Um...

So, he didn't start partying, going out,

till maybe he was about 23, something like that.

Just kind of out in the clubs and stuff like that,

his face was popping up quite a lot,

and we kind of connected from there,

started talking about doing parties and stuff,

kind of built a relationship from there.

Mark and his friends called themselves the Star Gang,

but according to those who knew him,

this was just a name they used when they were out at the clubs

and parties, not a gang in the criminal sense.

He was a player.

SHE LAUGHS

OK. A player is a womaniser.

A gangster is somebody that goes around and hurts people.

He was a womaniser.

Not an angel. If you came to fight him, he would fight you,

but he's not like how they make out, like,

"Yeah, he rolled around with a gun all the time."

It's nothing like that.

INTERVIEWER: Do you think he rolled around with a gun ever?

Well, there was a gun in the car, they said,

so he must have rolled around a bit at some time.

That would be the million-dollar question, innit?

I haven't got a clue why he had a gun. There's tons of reasons why.

Like, he could have been transporting it.

He could have been delivering it.

That's one thing I couldn't speculate on.

Ultimately, he may have been a big crim,

he may not have been a big crim.

What's not in doubt is, on the day in question,

he's being followed because they think he's going to get a weapon,

and he does.

In 2011, Mark's sister Kay

discovered that he was associating with

someone who had a serious criminal past involving guns.

Mark called me up one day and he says,

"I'm with one of your bredrens, you know?" And I said, "My friend?

"Who's my friend that you're with?"

I thought it was a girl.

So, he said, "Kevin."

There are some more photos coming round,

these black-and-white ones,

which is a guy called Kevin Hutchinson-Foster.

Now, intelligence would suggest that he's got control of the firearms

and from nine o'clock this evening, there may well be a plan

for Duggan to somehow get those firearms from Hutchinson.

Mr Foster.

Kevin Hutchinson-Foster.

I've known that name for a long time.

He was a friend of my ex-partner.

He is known for gang-associated things,

so when Mark let me know that he was kind of associated with this guy,

I was immediately telling Mark

this man is notorious.

He's already in firearms, drugs, that world.

I don't know my little brother to be that...

For him to be saying he's going to be friends with him,

"You can't be his friend. You can't be.

"That's a whole different world from where you are.

"What's the connection?" "Football."

I know Kevin plays football, so that IS a connection.

I couldn't say it was a lie, because I couldn't see Mark being

connected with this guy in any other way.

Mark Duggan was not an angel.

He had a criminal record.

It's equally clear that he did not have a criminal record

for very serious offences,

or serious violent offences, most importantly,

and, crucially, he did not have a record

for being associated with or using firearms.

Now, the same is not true of the person who supplied

that weapon to him, and that man, Kevin Hutchinson-Foster,

appears to belong in a somewhat different category.

The intelligence at the moment is that Hutchinson

has got control of at least one firearm,

which he's going to pass to Mark Duggan,

possibly at some point this evening.

Boss, I'll hand back to you, then.

I'll hand over to you for the method.

Good afternoon.

I'm the V59 operational firearms commander...

As the police prepared to intercept him in possession of a gun

later that evening, Mark Duggan was in Tottenham

with his sister Paulette and partner Semone.

The last time I saw Mark was the Wednesday.

We was at Semone's house

and it was a nice vibe that day, because the sun was out,

we was in the garden, chilling.

At first, the three of us were just sitting there drinking,

and then I went home and changed and came back to Semone's

because we were going to go to a barbecue.

-It will be nice to have my brother with me.

-I'll think about it.

What do you mean? Every time, he's, like, "I'll think about it."

'Semone went upstairs,

'and then it was just me and Mark left downstairs for about an hour.'

Me and him was, like, speaking about things like

the relationship that I was in, things that were happening

in his life,

'and things that his baby-mothers were doing.

'It was quite strange, because he was always aware that anything

'that he said to me, I'd say it back to Semone.

'So he wouldn't really go in depth.'

So, that heart-to-heart we had, I found it... It was quite moving.

-I'm going to tell her.

-Listen to me, shut your mouth.

Whatever. Whatever.

Intelligence was coming in every... Regularly.

At the time that I deployed the surveillance team,

Mark Duggan looked like he may be the most likely,

but there was intelligence that it may not happen tonight,

but it still hadn't been confirmed.

So, I sent a surveillance team,

the directed surveillance, etc, was all in place,

so rather than just have them sitting at the police station,

I sent them to the address where Mark Duggan was.

SHOTS FIRING IN GAME

Hold on...

Look, the guy's behind you.

Look, see him there? Shoot him. Shoot him.

-PHONE RINGS

-Hold on. Pause it. Pause it.

Yo.

The last time I saw Mark was on the Wednesday,

the day before he was shot.

He'd come round, because I had a party coming up on the weekend

and he wanted some tickets.

But there was just something he mentioned,

something about the police possibly following his car. His taxi.

But that paranoia is acceptable in our culture,

in our society, whatever, in our community, yeah?

You don't even really pay no mind to it,

because it's not unusual to be followed for no reason.

Shout me in the morning. Shout me in the morning. Yeah?

Bravo 22. We've got...

jumping in a car.

ENGINE STARTS

PHONE RINGS

Wagwan?

-POLICE RADIO:

-Recording.

Responding...

I'm on the roads now, man.

-POLICE RADIO:

-Their location...

Bravo 22, we think he's heading towards the Farm.

We've got a few cars in front of us.

SED11, as you may have heard, are the Met surveillance department.

They attempted to follow Mr Duggan on 3rd August,

but they lost him. They lost sight of him.

We're going to lose him.

Agh!

He's gone, guv.

I received intelligence that Mark Duggan,

at least at some stage on the 3rd,

was not going to be involved in criminality.

He was going to be involved in social activity that day.

The intelligence, at the time I receive it, I would say is reliable,

however, the people the intelligence is about aren't always as reliable

as the intelligence, if you see what I mean.

'He was just a normal gallis.

'That's what we'd use for a guy that has more than one woman.

'And he was a gallis.'

You're being a good girl tonight, ain't ya?

'At the time it happened, Shevea was two.'

Come to bed.

The night before Mark passed, he was with Shonel...

..making the final arrangements for Shevea's christening,

which was on the Sunday, that Mark never got to go to.

Going for a sleep, yeah?

'We planned to have her christened on 7th August, which was a Sunday.

'We were having a service at St Francis de Sales Church,

'and a little thing afterwards.'

Yeah, it's night-night. Daddy loves you, OK?

Having lost their target, the police stood down early.

The intelligence was, the intelligence picture,

if I'm remembering correctly,

was that this was probably going to happen the following night

at around about nine o'clock.

Now believing that Mark Duggan would receive a gun the next day,

the Trident, surveillance and firearms teams arrange to

come back on shift at 6pm the following evening.

I remember specifically, five past two, he left.

The cab had come and it was five past two.

He was fine.

He was telling me he was going to come back the day it happened.

He said he would see me later.

Yes, boss. Shoreditch, please, yeah?

I'm going to tell you where to go when we get there. Yeah?

Mark spent his last night at the home of his new partner, Precious.

I think the new love that he found was pushing him

into directions to be a man.

You know, you're a boy, you hang out on the street,

you're not doing anything,

you just play PlayStation.

So, now you've met this woman that

is in a nine-to-five job, going to work,

living a good life, he needed to be more.

RADIO ON

After Mark passed, we discovered that Mark had been in a relationship

with Precious for four months, and she was pregnant.

I remember... I think she said that he was in a bit of a mood

and she couldn't be dealing with him

so she said, "I just went and got a bath."

And he was getting ready to go.

She said, "When I came out the bath, he was all right.

"Normal."

TV ON

PHONE RINGS

Yo.

That's good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll come round soon.

I'll call you when I'm outside, innit?

I'll call you when I'm leaving.

All right. In a bit.

'He just asked to call a cab... and that was it.'

Hoxton Cars, how can I help?

Can I get a cab, please? Picking up from Micawber Court.

Micawber Court? And where are you going to?

-Vicarage Road. Leyton.

-OK. Can I take your name, please?

-Mark.

-Mark.

-Have you got this number, yeah?

I have. He'll give you a call when he's outside. He's on his way.

All right, thanks.

PHONE RINGS

Yeah?

Their shift was due to start at 6pm,

but at around 5.20, Trident's intelligence handler,

who had come in early, received information that Mark Duggan

would be collecting a firearm imminently.

Guys, Duggan's on the move. I'd like to get eyes on him now.

-At Leyton, Vicarage Road.

-Yeah, I know it, Skip.

-Go.

'The team were still gauged for a 6pm start.'

It's very unpredictable.

Things change at the last minute,

and we have to respond quite quickly, as in this case.

PHONE RINGS

Hello?

Boss, Duggan's on the move.

When?

Wait for Firearms.

While he waited for the firearms team,

Trident's intelligence handler sent the unarmed surveillance officers

he did have available on ahead.

We need you eyes on Vicarage Road, Leyton, now.

PHONE RINGS

Hello.

Yeah, we did.

We will be down shortly, yeah? Thanks. Bye.

-See you later, then.

-See you later.

Taxi, yeah?

What's happening, boss man? Are you all right?

-OK. Yeah. How are you doing?

-It's hot.

'He was mostly speaking on his mobile. He was normal.'

As a normal person. Normal behaviour.

LINE RINGING

INDISTINCT CHATTER

-PHONE RINGS

-Hang on a sec.

-Who is it?

-Mark.

I got the phone call from Mark to find out what I was cooking.

-Hello.

-Yo, Sem.

You got my food?

I don't want to hear nothing else. Food, food.

That's all I'm calling you for right now, you know?

She's like, "We didn't cook nothing."

Then he was like, "Yes, you did."

She said, "Yeah, we did, but it's for us."

You're too greedy. Don't worry, you'll be fed.

I said, "How long are you going to be?" He said, "I'm on my way."

Mark saying "on my way"

is just...you know...

He's never on time for anything.

'So when he said "on his way", I said OK.'

OK, bye.

With the firearms officers now arriving,

Trident's intelligence handler asked a firearms leader

to brief his team and get on the road as quickly as possible.

We've got three unarmed officers on the ground.

We need CO19 to take over.

The objective now was to stop and arrest Duggan

in possession of the gun.

I made sure, I spoke to Victor 59,

made sure he was updated with intelligence,

made sure he gave his staff

the warnings that I'd given in the briefing the day before,

just to make sure they were aware of the firearms warnings.

Obviously, they're getting their equipment on,

so they were in the yard, so I left them to get ready.

Listen in, guys. A firearm is to be fired only as a last resort.

Other methods must have been tried and failed...

The previous night, it was the SCD11 surveillance team,

who, as mentioned in the briefing,

are armed for their own protection,

therefore they can respond to any threat posed to them.

On the 4th, it was unarmed officers.

I was concerned at this stage that they were trying to gain

surveillance control of a male who was attempting to source a firearm,

and I felt that we needed to be closer to them

to respond to any threat to them.

The firearms team now had to play catch-up to get six miles

across London to Vicarage Road in Leyton.

If the secret intelligence was correct,

the unarmed surveillance officers would soon be facing an armed man.

PHONE RINGS

Yo.

Yeah, I'm on my way to you now.

Before the shooting, the police, through their agencies,

thought they knew

who was going to supply the gun.

Kevin Hutchinson-Foster.

I am on your road now, yeah?

Do you want me to wait?

Now, Kevin Hutchinson-Foster was not unknown to the law.

He'd been in prison.

Hey, boss man, just pull up here on the left.

-In between... Just behind that...

-Over here?

-Yeah, just here on the left.

-OK.

The gun that was eventually transferred was a gun

that he himself had used previously.

A week before Duggan's death, Kevin Hutchinson-Foster had used it

to beat a man very badly about the head

in an argument over a woman in a hairdressing salon.

Now, he was caught on CCTV carrying out this assault.

He was somebody involved in armed crime,

somebody who had access to weapons,

somebody who was, therefore, you would think,

of a special interest to Operation Trident,

the Metropolitan Police unit that deals with gun crime,

and yet, he seems to have been this man of mystery.

-What's going on?

-Cool, yeah?

They know he's got previous firearm charges,

been arrested for firearms offences,

and they know that he has got three handguns

and looking to put these three guns onto the streets.

Now, I would have thought common sense should dictate,

Mark's only going for one and he's transporting it,

this guy has got three, that the focus of the operation

should have changed to the major player.

You have to ask, why was nobody joining these dots?

Why was Kevin Hutchinson-Foster

not the principal target of a police operation?

My intelligence says that Mark Duggan is going to pick it up.

Let's follow Mark Duggan to where he's going to pick it up.

Why would I want to go and follow Kevin Hutchinson-Foster?

Were we to follow Hutchinson-Foster,

we would be following him blind, if you like.

We wouldn't know what it was he was doing.

I wasn't receiving any intelligence about Kevin Hutchinson-Foster,

other than that that I received about Mark Duggan.

By the time Mark Duggan arrived in Vicarage Road,

three undercover police units were in place.

But what happened next is disputed.

-Vicarage Road, Skip. Still no sign of him.

-OVER RADIO:

-OK.

There are two contradictory versions.

Well, it's a busy thoroughfare.

Numerous cars were going past me as I was sitting there.

At the time I saw it,

yeah, I must've been sitting there

for about 20 minutes or so, and I saw the minicab go past.

He was the only minicab that went past me, and I know it was

the only minicab that went past me, because nowadays

even black taxis have got a sticker in the rear window,

and that was the only cab that I saw that day.

Skip, I've got him. Duggan's in a cab, Vicarage Road.

Registration Romeo 3-4-3...

Only one of the undercover surveillance officers could

have seen the handover,

and he said that the taxi turned a corner and went out of sight.

Well, it was in a line of traffic.

It drove past me, he got to Burchell Road,

turned left out of my sight,

and reappeared approximately five minutes later.

The taxi driver disputed this.

I was on Vicarage Road, the corner of Vicarage and Burchell Road.

And I was parked in such that the traffic could pass by.

A person came to the car

then greeted him with, like, "hello"

or "salam alaikum",

and then was with him for about five minutes

and gave him a box.

And I don't think he was with him for more than about five minutes.

In evidence, the taxi's GPS system was examined and showed

the vehicle stayed on Vicarage Road.

I'd rather believe the independent witness and the GPS system,

so if the minicab didn't turn into Burchell Road,

those Trident officers in situ should have seen the handover,

and they should have at least got the other guy,

especially if they knew the other guy had another couple of guns.

Boss man, Tottenham.

We're asking,

what's the relationship between Operation Trident,

not CO19 officers who shot and killed Mark,

but Operation Trident and the person who supplied him with the firearm?

Skip, he's on the move.

-We all need to get behind him now.

-We're on him.

The police say that they didn't see the handover,

but somehow they knew that when he left Vicarage Road,

Mark Duggan had a gun.

How they knew this has never been revealed.

I have been clear from the outset

that there are some aspects of this investigation

which we are not able to put into the public domain,

but it has been very important to me

that I have had access to all the relevant intelligence,

and what I'm able to say is that we are certain

that when Mark Duggan arrived at the scene at Ferry Lane,

he arrived in possession of the firearm,

the non-police-issue firearm that was found at the scene.

He collected that firearm en route,

and although no police officers saw the exchange,

saw him being given it,

the taxi driver who was driving Mark Duggan saw him receive

the shoebox in which we believe the gun was placed.

Whether they found out through phone taps or informants,

when Duggan left Vicarage Road,

the police now considered him armed and dangerous.

SIRENS WAIL

Around about six o'clock, I asked Zulu Zulu 17 if he could confirm

whether he believed Mark Duggan was in possession of a firearm,

and that he was in that vehicle,

and he confirmed that,

and I went to Amber.

All units, we are now Code Amber. Repeat, Code Amber.

Basically, going to Amber means that

I have authorised the interception of that vehicle,

under the direction of the operational firearms commander,

at the safest possible opportunity they can do it.

-Command team, go.

-We're on.

SIRENS WAIL

Keeping the minicab in sight, three cars ahead.

-OVER RADIO:

-Keep eyes on. Firearms are still en route.

With the unarmed surveillance officers keeping Duggan in sight,

it was now the job of the firearms team to catch up and stop him.

Hey, boss man, what, you selling this, yeah?

His mood was quite all right, and he asked me about selling my car,

because I had advertised the car.

He asked me about information regarding buying the car.

How about I give you just over half, yeah?

Hmm. We're getting closer.

THEY LAUGH

SIREN WAILS

It's never been established exactly when it happened,

but it IS known that Mark Duggan spotted at least

one of the Trident undercover surveillance vehicles.

Mark sent a text to lots of his friends via a BB on BlackBerry,

telling them that Trident had tried to jam him.

He didn't say the police, he didn't say the feds, he said Trident,

and in the black community, Trident are known as the gun police.

He has sent the text, he's looking for the car, doesn't see it,

but doesn't know that Trident have now called in the heavy mob.

Actually, there was a good five minutes before Red was called

that we had our eyes on the minicab, because it was caught

in very heavy traffic,

so I can remember the firearms officers were able

to identify exactly where it was,

because the surveillance officer's commentary on the radio

was excellent, and she was able to say

it's behind this particular vehicle,

three in front of my vehicle. We had time to sit behind it.

Yo.

Yes, but listen...

Anyway, I'm coming to the Farm now, innit, so...

You're going up against criminals who have access to firearms.

Obviously, we're trained to use firearms,

but there's definitely a bit of apprehension, nervousness,

because you want to perform at the best of your ability.

At this stage, we had our blue lights and sirens turned off.

However, at that stage,

we could have overtaken that queue of traffic and implemented the stop.

However, that would have been wholly inappropriate and dangerous.

Therefore, we waited for the lights to change,

vehicles peeled off left and right at the next set of lights,

and we then found ourselves in Forest Road,

and were able to move through the traffic to the Ferry Lane area,

which was the first safe place to stop the vehicle.

When we stop people, they have three options.

They can either comply, as I've explained, yes, hands up,

"Fair cop, guv," I suppose.

They can either escape, attempt an escape,

or they can fight their way out. So, once we put the stop in,

Mr Duggan still had those three options in place.

I was conscious of one woman on a pedal cycle,

who was coming up behind the minicab.

As the stop went in, I looked round, just to check that she

was not going to continue into the area

where the stop was happening.

ENGINES REV

Stop!

At the point where I was alongside the minicab,

somebody in my vehicle said something along the lines of,

"I think he's going to leg it."

TYRES SCREECH

SHOUTING

He's reaching! He's reaching!

TWO GUNSHOTS

At this point,

I've heard two gunshots,

and then, from the rear of his jacket, a load of feathers appear.

They were in the air behind him, and all around him, really.

There was quite a number of... Quite a large

plume of feathers.

SHOUTING

'I kind of know what a gun sounds like.

'I've never handled one myself, but I know what a gun sounds like.'

I just remember thinking, like, "That gun sounds scary."

It just sounded, like, expensive. Do you know what I mean?

All of a sudden, I heard two shots, or two loud bangs. Bang-bang.

I'm thinking it's my phone.

And one of my roommates running, coming to me, saying,

"Yo! There's shooting outside. Someone got shot."

SIREN WAILS

Although footage of the area where the shooting happened was

captured by passing buses, there was no CCTV of the actual moment,

and no mobile phone footage of the shooting has ever been found.

One of the challenges of this case from the outset

has been the lack of independent witnesses

and the lack of recordings of the event,

and for anyone who lives and works in London,

the idea that something major could

happen in a place like Tottenham and it wasn't captured on camera,

by either individuals with their phones or by CCTV,

seems really hard to believe, and it was equally hard for me

to get my head round that, as it has been for everybody else.

The incident was not captured by the data recorders

fitted to the police vehicles,

so the only direct accounts of the shooting itself are those of

the police officers, the taxi driver and one independent witness.

GUNSHOTS

Yes, he's jumped out at pace and,

initially, he's facing towards Whisky 42,

and then, at that time, I'm getting out of my vehicle,

and I take a couple of steps towards, and I've got my MP5

in the off-aim ready position.

When he's moved towards the back of the rear of the minicab

and he's turned towards my colleagues,

because of not being able to see the right hand inside the jacket,

I've now got tunnel vision, if you want to call it,

towards his body now, excluding everything else,

concentrating solely on the shape of Mr Duggan in front of me.

The only way I can describe it is like a freeze-frame moment,

you know? It's like you've got Sky+ or a video recorder,

it's where you start pausing things,

and in my head, the world has stopped

because as he's turned to face me,

while I had lovely peripheral vision,

my focus turned immediately to what was in his hand.

As the subject set off in a sort of half-run towards me,

I saw him very quickly pull his right hand up and out of his jacket.

I can see the hand under the weapon, I can make out the trigger guard,

I can make out the barrel, and it's side on to his body,

and there's a black sock covering that weapon.

As he's drawn the gun, my threat assessment was

that it was an imminent threat to life,

because he was drawing that weapon in order to fire it at us.

If Mr Duggan had left the gun like this, I would have hoped he

would have dropped it, but because he's moved it

away from his body,

I now have an honest-held belief he's going to shoot me.

What I have then seen is his elbow, his right elbow, move out slightly.

It was minimal, yes, a few inches would probably be correct,

but it was enough to make me shout what I did next.

He's reaching! He's reaching!

Shots fired! Shots fired!

-Where's the gun?

-His gun?

-Where's the gun?

-Where's the gun?

I keep running the moment through my head day in, day out,

and Mark Duggan had a gun.

He presented a threat to me,

and the only option I had was to defend myself and to open fire.

SHOUTING

Where's the gun?

I started shouting, "Where's the gun?" He was totally unresponsive

and limp, but I was convinced I'd find the gun on him or under him.

It's not here. Look that way.

I think it, obviously appreciating that

I only saw it for a split second,

in the manner in which it was drawn, and I don't see any details of it,

just that it was a gun-shaped object, effectively.

Keep your hands exactly where they are.

SIREN WAILS

I wasn't aware that I was the only person,

other than Victor 53, to see the gun.

In his initial statement, Whisky 70 made no mention of the gun.

It was very apparent within...

within a minute at most what had happened,

in that Victor 53 had shot Mr Duggan,

and the round had continued straight through and hit Whisky 42.

GUNSHOTS

It's something that I'll never forget, to be honest,

because he's a mate of mine, and I went over to him and, again,

the only way I can describe this is, his knees started to go.

I sort of called it an Elvis,

because his knees started to buckle under him.

His face was initially red,

but you could see the white just go down his face,

so I grabbed him and I put him down against the fence line,

telling him, "Man up," and a bit of cop humour, to be honest with you,

as I'm cutting his clothes off,

because I'm looking for a bullet wound now.

Touch wood, the round was in his radio,

and there was no obvious penetration in him.

I've satisfied myself that Whisky 42 has no life-threatening injuries,

so I've dealt with Whisky 42

for around two minutes.

I've then gone back to Mark Duggan,

who's the casualty now, and he needs attention.

SIREN WAILS

Only one independent eyewitness to the actual shooting

ever came forward.

He lived in a block of flats directly opposite

to where the incident happened.

I heard tyres screeching, a couple of tyres screeching,

and then I heard shouting as well.

The shouting was either "put it down" or "get down".

Is it was one of those two.

I just started looking... Well, viewing what was going on.

I went to the window, stuck, like, half my body

out the window and then I started seeing everything, really.

He had a...

Well, it looked like a phone clutched in his hands.

I've said that from day one, and I will always say that.

It did look like a phone,

and he had his hands up, like that.

Above his shoulders.

Right near the face, like, you know...

The moment he got shot,

that's when I went inside and got my phone and started recording.

It was only about two seconds, three seconds at most,

getting the phone.

His body language was a bit like, "What's going on?

"Really?"

With his hands up, you know?

Independent experts were asked to investigate whether

Mark Duggan could have had his hands up when he was shot.

I'm a pathologist, so I examine the dead body, document the injuries,

but I also look at the scene of the death,

and the order of the shots matters

if you want to reconstruct the events,

because the body positions are very different

for the two shots.

Now, there is good evidence that the first shot was the shot that

struck the arm and the side of the chest, but didn't enter the chest.

For the bullet to pass in here and out here,

and to strike the side of the chest,

the arm has to be turned.

Now, that gunshot tore the fibres

for quite a distance up the muscle,

and that's a good indicator that the muscle was contracted

at the time, and the muscle is contracted when you bend your elbow.

And we have a police statement from two police witnesses that

Mark Duggan's right hand was across his waistband.

So we can corroborate that.

The bullet that went into the chest went through the clothing,

and, unusually, it went in on the inside of the left-front corner,

out on the outer side and then into the chest,

so the garment had to be twisted up to the right and inside out.

So, we have an imagery now of Mark Duggan being shot in the arm,

at the same time, his left hand was in his pocket,

his right hand along the waistband, and he reacts to that by...

..going forwards and raising his left arm.

It's not possible that he was in a position of surrendering,

with both hands raised at the time of the first shot,

because we know his right arm had to be down by his body

and bent at the elbow.

Armed police! Get out of the car!

They dragged me out of my car,

and they treat me like some kind of criminal.

Get out of the car.

'They dragged me with a very rough attitude,

'and then they laid me on the floor and handcuffed me at the back.'

-Keep them

-BLEEP

-there.

They ordered me. They ordered me not to look at...towards Mr Duggan.

Not to look at the victim and to look away.

It was quite a dangerous situation.

There was blood on his clothes,

and quite a few people were holding on to him, and his mouth was open.

-Don't you

-BLEEP

-look, or I will

-BLEEP

-shoot you.

Stop looking!

Yes, the one that was standing by my head said...

next to me, he had told me that he would shoot me.

He had a gun in his hand.

To me, it looked like these people had come out to hunt someone.

That's what it looked like to me.

One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.

SIREN WAILS

I always carried around this pretty good compact camera

on the off-chance that, one day,

something might happen right in front of my eyes,

and I can just dig down there and get it,

so I decided at that point, right,

let's go and take some photographs of whatever it is going on.

I was there, just filming what was going on,

still trying to find out what happened.

"Did anyone see exactly what happened?"

"I didn't see it." This one saw it, that one didn't.

But everyone was, like, fixed on what was going on.

I remember seeing a group of officers as well trying

to resuscitate Mark Duggan.

But at that time, I never knew it was him, that's the thing.

At the time, I didn't know it was Mark,

nobody knew, do you know what I mean?

So, from that distance, I guess he's fair enough

where you might think he's a white dude, do you know what I mean?

And that's kind of generally where that came from.

People that were there were thinking, "Oh, some white dude.

"Might be an Albanian gangster. They've shot someone."

"Oh, at least it's not a black guy this time, innit?"

Do you know what I mean? It was that kind of thing.

The feeling that I had in viewing that scene

as I shot those pictures

was one of chaos.

I could see the way the policemen were looking at each other,

the way that they were talking to each other,

some of the body language that they gave off...

Can you start moving away, please, yeah?

The way that sometimes a police officer would start walking

one way but then flip around and walk the other way,

as if he didn't quite know whether he should do that or not.

Where's the gun? Where's the gun?!

After the shooting,

a gun was found on the green next to where the minicab was stopped.

Details of exactly where or when it was found were not recorded.

It took too long for that gun to be found.

No-one can tell me that 11 police officers can face an armed man,

that man gets shot,

and that gun not be found in a nanosecond,

because all 11 officers are trained to keep their eye

and keep that focus on that gun.

The biggest issue has been, how did that gun get there?

How did a gun get 14 feet over a fence,

and even more, and nobody saw how it got there,

and that has been the great mystery of this investigation.

There was also no agreement about who found the gun.

At the inquest, two officers each claim to have found it

independently of one another.

I turned to Romeo 31 who, at this stage, wasn't undertaking any

first aid or any other task and asked him to look for the firearm.

Once I've started working my way along the bushes,

occasionally, I think, lifting some up,

some of them a little bigger than others,

so I have a look behind them, then as I'm walking down,

I get to roughly where the wall is,

that's when I see out of the corner of my eye

something black lying in the grass.

Well, at some stage, I'm not sure exactly how long after it,

I was on the phone to the SIO

and I could hear one of the firearms officers

saying that they hadn't located the firearm,

and I remember thinking,

"I wonder if anyone's looked to the left of the wall where it happened."

And I just took a couple of steps down to the left,

there's a little alleyway there,

and the gun was just on the ground, on the grass.

Right there.

There is a problem with that.

None of the trained police officers see

a gun flying through the air on a sunny day

with crystal-clear vision.

It's just not seen. Can they REALLY have missed it?

I'm sure it would clear up a hell of a lot of stuff if I was able to say,

yes, I saw the gun fly through the air and it landed wherever.

But I didn't see it.

There was nothing obstructing my way,

but I didn't clearly see what happened to that gun.

No. I don't see anything go over the fence.

The medical evidence,

in terms of his wounds and his body position when he was shot,

would give an idea about the possibility

of him throwing the weapon.

The two police officers say there is a gun in Mark Duggan's hand.

But the gun ends up some distance away,

over five-foot railings.

Mark Duggan is facing the two police officers,

they are watching his right hand because they are looking for a gun.

And he ends up in a position, twisted, bent,

and now, he would have to throw the gun in that direction.

He would need to do it with a wounded arm

in which, because of the damage to the muscle,

he couldn't put his palm upright,

so he would have to throw it palm-down.

For me, it's inconceivable that, if he did achieve that,

it was done without the two police officers seeing it.

That leaves us with two possibilities.

First possibility is that Mark Duggan threw it there

before he exited the vehicle.

Second possibility is the police planted it.

There was allegations about police planting the weapon.

That's outside my area, I can't comment on that,

but it seems to me,

from the evidence of the police officers,

that the first sight they get of him,

the door is already open and he is exiting the vehicle,

so there was an opportunity for him to open the door,

throw the weapon and THEN step out

and that's what the jury concluded,

that's what I concluded.

The inquest jury decided that

it was only after Mark Duggan threw the gun that he was shot.

He's reaching, he's reaching!

TWO GUNSHOTS

TAPE REWINDS

The IPCC concluded that it was more likely

that Mark was shot as he was throwing the gun.

TWO GUNSHOTS

Shots fired, shots fired!

TAPE REWINDS

Neither version explains why there was no forensic evidence

connecting Mark Duggan to the gun.

Armed police, armed police!

TWO GUNSHOTS

Shots fired, shots fired!

If this guy had had a gun in his hand

when he was shot by the police officer...

There's no DNA,

there's no fingerprints.

It would turn out there was no gun residue,

there was just nothing connecting him

to ever have been holding the gun

and pointing it in the direction of a police officer

or waving it around when surrounded by the police.

In terms of the forensic evidence on the gun or not on the gun,

you can't explain why something ISN'T there.

You can ask the question, does the fact that it isn't there

mean absolutely this can't have happened?

So, does the lack of forensic evidence

mean that he couldn't have had it?

And the answer back to us, forensically,

has been no, it doesn't mean that.

We might have expected to find it, we didn't find it,

but there was nothing there that said, actually,

this couldn't have happened, if that makes sense.

Well, my understanding was that

the position of the gun was a pertinent and critical issue

as far as the rest of the deliberations of the inquest

because of suggestions as to how the gun may have got there.

We were specifically asked to track the movements, for example,

of the three people that had been seen moving to the grassed area.

R31, we indicate him as a yellow arrow.

Z51 is identified as a blue arrow

and V59 is identified by a pink or purple arrow.

I introduced this person "White Top" because I saw him on the footage.

He seemed to interact

with each of the three individuals at various times.

As a result of that, I was asked then to write another report

considering the movements of "White Top"

throughout the same footage.

My role, if you like, that I assumed then was to be checking on,

as I say, the scene as a whole, trying to make sure it's secure

and also making sure my colleagues were OK

and that would be those giving first aid to Mr Duggan.

All the other people within the scene

seem to be very focused in doing their own thing.

Now, I didn't know whether White Top

was coordinating activity or otherwise.

He has moved in from camera left, off-camera,

walks all the way across, interacts with other people,

and moves around the area as a whole.

That was the thing that highlighted him to me in the first place,

was he seemed to be touring the whole scene

rather than being focused in any one area.

When the commotion happened,

when they was doing CPR on Mr Duggan here,

because all the officers' backs was towards me,

all I could see was the officers' backs,

so that's when I ran back over to the green, where the handrail is.

An officer had gone into a car.

I think it was a...

It wasn't a boiler-suit policeman, it was a regular police, right?

He had taken the gun out of the car

and he placed it in, on a black cloth

in the palm of his hand, right?

The theory would be, then,

that one of the police officers went into the taxi

after Mark Duggan was shot, got the gun,

kept it on his person and then,

in a pretence of looking for the gun, then planted it.

He moves behind the minicab and then appears to bend down

and is obscured from view.

Whether he accesses the minicab, I can't confirm,

because I can't see him, I can't see him do that.

Whether he bent down

and communicated with one of the officers around Mark Duggan,

again, I cannot confirm that, because he is out of view.

When I went back round the minicab, it was at the point

where, I believe, someone has asked me to open up the extra Medikit.

I cannot be specific as to who it was,

somebody simply shouted for me to open up the second medic pack.

I can't... How can I put it? It happened, right?

I don't remember everything, but one thing I do remember

is that I saw an officer come out of the car with a gun.

Miss J has always maintained

that she saw an officer coming out of the minicab with a gun,

but there were inconsistencies in her accounts

to the inquest and the IPCC,

who concluded that her evidence was unreliable and contradictory.

There is no way you can be mistaken seeing a gun in Tottenham

in broad daylight!

If you're going to have the presence of mind

to think, "Oh, we need to plant this gun

"because it doesn't look good where it's been found,"

it's hard for me to then think

you'd go through that process, but not have the presence of mind

to plant it somewhere useful to you.

Actually, where the gun was found

has caused huge problems for the police,

in terms of the plausibility and credibility of their accounts.

My team are very professional.

No, we did not plant any gun at any scene.

I find that highly offensive.

TWO GUNSHOTS

I was asked, actually, by the police

to produce a review

about the impact of emotion,

like being involved in a shooting incident,

how that impacts on memory.

Under most circumstances, you know,

police officers don't shoot people who are unarmed.

Occasionally, there is a sort of a perceptual distortion.

The person is lifting something and it's not a gun,

but something else that the police officer believes is a gun

and believes he is under threat.

We know that the police were told that Mark Duggan was dangerous

and that he was armed

and we know, as a fact, he did have a gun in the vehicle.

He was stopped by armed police and he did a runner

and he ran into an armed police officer

who was holding his gun in the shooting position.

At the same time, he was making some body movements

which could be interpreted as pulling a gun.

He has got his right hand across his waistband area

and, on the evidence of one of the police witnesses,

his left hand in his pocket,

as if he is fumbling for something

and he is using his right hand to assist from the outside.

The only thing that was found on his body was a mobile phone.

We don't know which pocket it was in.

The police have no record of that.

But the best bet is he had a mobile phone in his left pocket,

he was trying to get it out and, in that split second,

a police officer decided to fire.

He was wrong about the gun being in Duggan's hand,

but it's pretty hard to criticise that police officer

in all the circumstances.

The common cognitive distortion that is reported is time slowing down.

Everything seems to be like it's slow motion,

but it's likely to be a distortion.

It doesn't have to be that they are lying,

it means, when you look at memory, memory is fragile,

it is very easy to make mistakes.

As I was taking the photographs,

I was forming that idea that there was

something else going on there,

that there was that confusion, that chaos.

Those things together made me realise

that this was a big piece of news.

Some time between 6.00 and 6.30, a call comes into the newsdesk -

rare, because we are not normally the first port of call for people

with breaking news.

Someone said there had been a shooting in Tottenham

and he had some pictures.

I said, "Right, I'll start getting the pictures off the camera

"and I'll start figuring out a way of somehow getting them to you."

And I rang the Metropolitan Police Press Office.

At about 7.25, I get a call from a press officer

and I say to him, "Look, this is really serious,

"this is what we think is happening.

"Can you confirm what's happened?"

He said, "I don't know anything about it, I'll come back to you."

Five minutes later, nothing had happened,

I ring him again.

He then says to me,

"Yes, all I can tell you is there's been an exchange of fire.

"Someone is dead

"and a police officer has been taken to hospital,

"we believe he has been shot."

And I said, "So, there has been an exchange of gunfire?

"How is the police officer?"

"We've got no idea on his condition, that's all I know."

That was it.

At the same time, it occurred to me, if there had been a shooting,

the Independent Police Complaints Commission

would have to be notified, so I rang their duty press officer

and, almost word for word, he says exactly the same thing.

"We understand there's been an exchange of fire,

"police have returned fire, a police officer has been injured

"and has gone to hospital and someone has been killed.

"That's all we know at the moment."