Met police officer who killed Chris Kaba acquitted of murder

Chris Kaba

The armed police officer who shot and killed Chris Kaba was found not guilty of murder on Monday.

The jury took less than three hours to deliberate and reach their verdict. It was not allowed by the judge to make any statements other than the verdict.

Martyn Blake shot Chris—a 24 year-old unarmed black man—in the head through the windscreen of his Audi from a distance of about five to six metres after a police stop on 5 September 2022.

The whole incident took just 13 seconds.

Several police officers were called to give evidence during the course of the trial. The prosecution raised issues of the partiality and reliability of the witnesses.

Tom Little QC alleged that Blake’s account, given in the days after the shooting, was false “in a number of material respects” and “exaggerated in other parts”.

He argued that the car was stationary at the time. “You don’t see the Audi being driven directly towards the defendant, nor the movement to the right to avoid being killed as he claimed in his first account of the incident,” he said.

“Nor can the defendant reasonably and honestly have perceived that at the time.”

Blake argued that he feared for the lives of his colleagues at the time when he shot. He said he believed Chris was about to use his car as a “battering ram” in an attempt to break free of the police cars that were surrounding him.

He has stated that he didn’t aim to kill Chris. He said he just wanted to stop the car, after several unsuccessful attempts by his colleagues to attract the driver’s attention and remove him safely from the vehicle.

For a guilty verdict, the jury would have needed to be sure that Blake intended to harm him.

Since 1990, there have been 83 deaths related to police shootings. Only four officers have been prosecuted and none of these have been successful.

In 2021 PC Benjamin Monk was found guilty of manslaughter, but not murder, for using kicks to the head and a Taser to kill Dalian Atkinson in Telford, Shropshire.

A statement from the Kaba family said, “We are devastated. The not guilty verdict leaves us with the deep pain of injustice adding to the unbearable sorrow we have felt since Chris was killed.

“The acquittal of Martyn Blake isn’t just a failure for our family, but for all those affected by police violence.”