'No justification' for 'angry' police officer to shoot Chris Kaba, court hears, as murder trial begins
2 October 2024, 15:40 | Updated: 2 October 2024, 17:16
There was ‘no justification’ for a police officer to shoot and kill Chris Kaba in South London two years ago, a court has heard.
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Martyn Blake, 40, a firearms officer with the Metropolitan Police, denies murder after a single shot was fired through the windscreen of an Audi in Streatham Hill, on September 5, 2022.
The jury was told that the car Chris Kaba was driving when he was shot had been linked to a shooting in Brixton, South London, the night before.
“Members of the public contacted the police to report hearing gunshots in Brixton and that a man had been seen with a shotgun,” Mr Little said in his opening.
“The reports also included details that three men, wearing dark hoodies, had changed their clothes and got into two vehicles and had driven away.
“A registration number given for one of the vehicles… was the registration number of the Audi that Chris Kaba was driving on the night you are considering.”
Chris, who was 24 years old and due to become a father just four months later, died of his injuries in hospital.
Opening the trial at the Old Bailey, prosecutor Tom Little KC told the jury: “The defendant did not know the man he shot. What he was thinking at the time only he knows.
"But you may want to consider in this case whether the requests that were made to Chris Kaba by the police that he did not obey caused the defendant to become angry, frustrated and annoyed."
Read more: Met Police marksman to face trial over fatal shooting of Chris Kaba
Mr Little added: “This is a case of murder rather than a case of lawful self-defence or lawful defence of another.
"We say that nothing Chris Kaba did in the seconds before he was shot justified the defendant's decision to shoot.
“There can be no doubt that he intended to incapacitate and, we say, kill Chris Kaba.
“He shot him once straight to the head. He was trained to use a firearm and if necessary to shoot knowing that almost inevitably death would follow and that is what he did.
“We say, there was no real or immediate threat to the life of anybody present at the scene and in particular at that all-important point in time when the defendant fired that fatal shot.”
Previously known only as NX121, the judge, Mr Justice Goss, decided to lift the anonymity order, preventing Martyn Blake from being named.
The court heard that Chris Kaba, who was driving the Audi, had been trying to escape officers in Streatham and had turned from New Park Road onto Kirkstall Gardens, just after 10pm, where a police vehicle had blocked his path.
A computer-generated video, shown to the jury, was used to describe how Mr Kaba had tried to drive forwards to pass the car before he reversed and was shot by Martyn Blake.
After an investigation by the independent police watchdog, the Crown Prosecution Service agreed to charge the armed officer with murder last September.
He denies the charge and the trial is expected to continue for up to three weeks.
