No charges for gun death officers

Two policemen will not be charged after shooting dead a man carrying a table leg they mistook for a sawn-off shotgun, the CPS has said.

Metropolitan Police officer Inspector Neil Sharman and Pc Kevin Fagan were arrested in June in connection with the death of Harry Stanley, 46. The father-of-three, originally from Lanarkshire, Scotland, was shot dead in Hackney, east London, in 1999.
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Level of evidence has been set too high, say lawyers
The decision not to prosecute any police officer for the shooting of Harry Stanley fits an alarming pattern for such cases. Of 30 fatalities involving police shootings in the past 12 years no officer has been convicted of murder or manslaughter.

Daniel Machover, the solicitor representing the Stanley family, said there was a real concern that the Crown Prosecution Service had set the evidential bar too high when it came to considering charges against police officers. He said police need only raise a prima facie defence of self-defence to block prospects of a successful prosecution.

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Filed under: Police Custody