Looking at the specific facts of the Mark Duggan case, it is difficult, if not impossible, to understand how the jury reconciled its finding that he was not in possession of a gun at the time of the police shooting with its acceptance of the police marksman’s evidence that he was 100 per cent sure when he took the decision to shoot that Mark Duggan was threatening him with a gun. Perhaps it might be necessary to re-examine how the coroner summed up the case as part of an appeal against the verdict. More generally, we believe that there is a lack of guidance for coroners on directing juries in such cases which should be addressed.

Juries are not omniscient and sometimes get it wrong, but this is not an adequate reason to argue that the use of juries in inquests is flawed. Rightly or wrongly, a judge might be perceived to be part of a state institution, and therefore potentially biased, so deciding whether or not a death at the hands of the state was lawful is a judgment which should properly be arrived at by a jury of citizens.

The charity Inquest has monitored deaths involving law enforcement agencies for more than 30 years. It points to the disproportionate number of deaths by state agents involving people from black and minority ethnic (BME) communities that have led to an unlawful killing verdict, but no further action. According to Inquest, there have been nine verdicts of unlawful killing by inquest juries and one unlawful killing verdict recorded by a public inquiry since 1990.2See: www.inquest.org.uk/statistics/unlawful-killing-verdicts. These cases involved deaths in prison, police custody or during pursuits by the police. Out of the ten cases, eight of the people who died were black, one person was Irish white and one person was UK white. Despite the unlawful killing verdicts, none of these cases resulted in a successful prosecution. This suggests that there is a systemic problem which needs to be examined.

Two factors that are likely to contribute to the state’s failure to pursue successful prosecutions after an unlawful killing verdict are the imbalance of resources between the bereaved family and the state, and police control of evidence after a death. We suggest that comprehensively unpicking these and any other factors at play is an urgent task.

Practitioners report to LAG that, in cases involving a death in custody, the police have excellent legal and other resources to defend themselves, paid for by their trade union. In contrast, a bereaved family is often relying on only a small amount of legal aid granted under the exceptional cases rules. We believe that ensuring equality before the law, especially in cases involving a death at the hands of the state, is another issue that should be addressed urgently.

In response to the Mark Duggan case, the Metropolitan Police have agreed to evaluate the use of body-worn video cameras (BWC) on firearms officers to record their actions. Much of the distrust concerning police evidence in this case stems from the suspicion that the gun was either planted or moved, after the event, to justify the police actions. The use of cameras would prevent potential tampering with forensic and other evidence at a crime scene, along with accusations of the same.

LAG believes that the treatment of BME young men is a major factor behind public distrust by many of the police. For example, black people were seven times more likely to be stopped and searched by the police than their white counterparts in 2010/11.3See: www.irr.org.uk/research/statistics/criminal-justice/. BWC recording of stop-and-search incidents would make the police more accountable for their actions and help to ensure that all members of the public are treated respectfully. We think that this would go some way towards re-establishing the principle that British police forces enforce the law with the consent of all the communities they serve, something which looked under threat after the events of summer 2011 and their aftermath.