George Barnes is a member of Conservative Friends of the Armed Forces and has just completed a course in War Studies and Command.
Earlier this month Martyn Blake, an Authorised Firearms Officers with the Met Police, was finally found not guilty of the murder of Chris Kaba. The case has taken just over two years to resolve.
During this time, Mr Blake has had to contemplate the real and grim prospect of significant jail time. He has also faced numerous threats to his safety, most notably from Chris Kaba’s gang, the Brixton-based 67, who has offered a £10,000 reward for his death. It is impossible for us to imagine the effect this must have had, and will continue to have, on both Mr Blake and his family.
Such incidents are decided in a matter of seconds. Seventeen seconds for Martyn Blake to be precise.
During this extraordinarily short period of time, Mr Blake had to make a dynamic snap judgement, based on his experience, training and intuition, all whilst under enormous pressure. We do not know what would have happened if he hadn’t fired, but clearly the Jury agreed that Mr Blake’s assessment of the situation, and thus his response, was justified.
The bitter irony is of course that all this should never have happened in the first place. Not only the decision by the CPS to name Mr Blake, but to recommend his prosecution for murder. Simply put, our AFOs are being held to a standard and a process which is deaf to the realities and demands of the role.
This has now been tacitly acknowledged by our Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, who last week announced a review into whether the standard required for an inquest to conclude someone was unlawfully killed should be raised.
Although it is wholly appropriate for a politician to give their own view on the matter (you could say it is expected of a Home Secretary), Ms Cooper has declined to issue a clear opinion. Perhaps it was too much to expect a Labour Government, even one led by a man who has made hay of taking down terrorists as DPP, to state that there is an imbalance on how our armed Police Officers are treated.
Make no mistake – there is an imbalance, and one that needs to be addressed rapidly.
Our AFOs are facing a worrying contradiction each day they put on their uniform. On one hand they are expected to exercise their judgement in deciding whether they should fire their weapon and potentially take someone’s life. But on the other, they are being consistently shown that discharging a weapon will condemn them to almost certain suspension and years of gruelling legal battles, no matter the circumstances. In short, they are to expect to suffer for carrying out the role they have been trained to deliver.
We would not arm Police if we did not think there was a requirement for law enforcement to use lethal force. Yet each time lethal force is employed, the consequences for the AFO in question implies and assumes wrongdoing. We are now dissuading so many AFOs from firing their weapons that we risk our armed Police morphing into a symbolic deterrent, only prepared to fire in the most obvious clear-cut circumstances. This will cede ground to terrorists and violent criminals, who will exploit this reluctance to fire, further corroding Law and Order across the UK.
That is not to say that our Police should not face scrutiny for their actions. It is vital our Police are held to account, and vile, unprofessional and questionable decision-making is appropriately addressed, whether through the IOPC, or in the most serious cases, through the courts. But in this area, the consequences of AFOs doing a core element (if not the core element) of their role appears to be disproportionally risky and punitive.
We cannot just sit back and sling mud at the Labour administration, however cowardly, roundabout and slow their approach on this issue has been. We the Conservatives must take a fair share of the blame. The previous 14 years of Tory rule presented myriad opportunities to address this imbalance, and take the necessary steps to reduce the threat of lawfare which hangs over our AFOs. But our Conservative ministers didn’t want to take those decisions. They didn’t want to take on the lobbyists, the human rights lawyers, or the media outlets that exaggerated the scale of the toxic culture within elements of our Police.
The Conservatives are the natural party of Law and Order, but on this particular issue we failed both ourselves and the Police.
Whoever wins this Conservative leadership election must remember and admit this failure. They must be vocal and robust in defending our Police.
With Labour already showing a reluctance to take a firm stance, their influence will be all the more important. Their voice will be crucial in helping to positively shape the review, and ensure the imbalance is both publicly recognised and addressed.
Our firearms officers deserve better – the Conservative Party can’t afford to let them down again.
