I asked Mr Long a question he has been asked many times: how does a firearms officer feel after killing someone?
“Me personally, a sort of emptiness,” he replied. “Feeling a sort of guilt, but not feeling guilty, if that makes sense.
“You know, for me and for all of us, really, I suppose, taking human life isn’t something you take casually, not unless you’re a psychopath. And I also felt anger.”
The former police marksman, now 67 and long-retired, has vivid memories of shooting dead Azelle Rodney, a suspected gang member who officers thought was on his way to commit an armed robbery in north London in 2005.
Image: Azelle Rodney was shot dead in April 2005
Police stopped the car he was in and Mr Long shot him six times because he feared 24-year-old Rodney’s movements meant he was reaching for a gun.
“I had to sit at the scene for ages and I watched my colleagues trying to do first aid on the young man that I’d shot,” Mr Long said.
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“And then eventually an ambulance arrived and said; ‘He’s gone’, which we knew, but we have to try. And they covered him up with a blanket.
“Of course, it’s a crime scene now, so I had to just sit there and look at this red blanket, and the more I looked, the more angry I got.”
Image: Tony Long leaves the Old Bailey during his trial in 2015. Pic: PA
Mr Long had to wait 10 years to stand trial, subject first to a long investigation and a public inquiry which had concluded he wasn’t legally justified in opening fire.
In court, he was acquitted by the jury.
Since 1990, police in England and Wales have shot and killed 83 people.
Before Mr Long’s trial, an officer was tried and acquitted of murdering David Ewin in southwest London in 1995, a verdict delivered after two previous juries had failed to make a decision.
Another officer was tried and acquitted of murdering James Ashley in East Sussex in 1998. Four other Sussex officers were cleared on lesser charges.
In 2021, PC Benjamin Monk was jailed for eight years for manslaughter over the death of former Aston Villa footballer Dalian Atkinson, who was tasered multiple times and kicked in the head. The officer was cleared of murder.
Image: A police officer was jailed for the manslaughter of Dalian Atkinson (pictured). Pic: PA
Mr Atkinson was involved in a stand-off with police after suffering a mental breakdown.
In a long career with the Metropolitan Police, Mr Long had been commended seven times. He had previously shot dead two other suspects but had faced no criminal or disciplinary action.
“It’s impossible to be a police officer for too long nowadays without having to get in a violent confrontation with people,” he said.
“We actually know the reality of real life conflict. But the people that are judging you they don’t understand that. And they go, well, you said this and now you’re saying this or your colleague doesn’t say that.”
Mr Long followed the trial of Blake over the death of Mr Kaba who was stopped while driving a car thought to have been linked with a shooting incident the night before.
The prosecution had accused Blake, in statements to police, of giving false or exaggerated accounts of what happened and his responses.
Image: Chris Kaba was shot dead by a police officer in September 2022. Pic: Family handout/PA
Mr Long said: “You and I could be literally feet apart. We could be shoulder to shoulder, and I would see a need to shoot somebody. But you wouldn’t have seen it just because of, you know, a foot difference in angle and your recollection won’t be the same because when you’re in a high threat situation, there’s all sorts of chemicals released into the body that mess with your normal daily cognitive way of dealing with things and understanding things.
“If you’ve not been in that position and you’re judging purely on what you’ve seen on a body-worn camera in the comfort of (a) little studio and rewinding it, then playing it forward and then freeze framing it, you may think you understand what went on, and in real terms you might have a better understanding of what actually happened and the people that were there.”
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has called for more legal protection for officers who use lethal force, but it’s not clear to Mr Long how that would work.
He said: “We ask those police officers to look after us. And if we train them to use these varying degrees of force, ending up potentially with lethal force, then I think we should be, not cutting them some slack, but we should have a better understanding. And you can’t just automatically say, well, that police officer shot someone and then go, well, charged with murder.”
The threat of physical attacks by Iran on people living in the UK has increased “significantly” since 2022, according to a new report by parliament’s intelligence watchdog.
Iran poses a “wide-ranging, persistent and unpredictable threat” to the UK, according to the Intelligence and Security Committee.
It also said Iran’s intelligence services were “willing and able – often through third party agents – to attempt assassination within the UK, and kidnap from the UK”.
Image: Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Pic: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/West Asia News Agency/Reuters
The report said there have been 15 murder or kidnap attempts against British citizens or UK-based individuals since the beginning of 2022 and August 2023.
Sky News has approached the Iranian embassy for a comment.
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The report authors add: “Whilst Iran’s activity appears to be less strategic and on a smaller scale than Russia and China, Iran poses a wide-ranging threat to UK national security, which should not be underestimated: it is persistent and crucially – unpredictable.”
The committee also says that while the threat is often focused on dissidents and other opponents to the regime, there is also an increased threat to Jewish and Israeli interests in the UK.
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The report warns that while Iran has not developed a nuclear weapon, it has taken steps towards that goal.
It found that Iran had been “broadly compliant” with the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), aimed at limiting its nuclear ambitions.
But since Donald Trump withdrew from that deal in 2018, the report said the nuclear threat had increased and Tehran “had the capability to arm in a relatively short period”.
The UK government is also accused of “fire-fighting” rather than developing a real understanding of Iran.
Image: Iran’s president oversees a parade in Tehran in April showing off the country’s military hardware. Pic: West Asia News Agency/Reuters
Image: Missiles are paraded through the capital during the recent National Army Day ceremony. Pic: West Asia News Agency/Reuters
The report says: “The government’s policy on Iran has suffered from a focus on crisis management, driven by concerns over Iran’s nuclear programme, to the exclusion of other issues.
“As one of our expert witnesses told the committee: ‘Strategy is not a word that I think has crossed the lips of policy makers for a while, certainly not in relation to Iran’.”
The committee concluded its evidence-taking in August 2023, the result of two years of work, but the report authors say their conclusions “remain relevant”.
But the report authors questioned whether UK sanctions against individuals would “in practice deliver behavioural change. Or in fact unhelpfully push Iran towards China”.
The committee also said the British government should consider proscribing the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), although some argue it would limit the UK’s ability to talk to and influence Iran.
Responding to the report, a UK government spokesperson said: “The government will take action wherever necessary to protect national security, which is a foundation of our plan for change.
“We have already placed Iran on the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme and introduced further sanctions against individuals and entities linked to Iran, bringing the total number of sanctions to 450.”
British security services say Tehran uses criminal proxies to carry out its work in Britain.
In December, two Romanians were charged after a journalist working for a Persian language media organisation in London was stabbed in the leg. In May, three Iranian men appeared in court charged with assisting Iran’s foreign intelligence service and plotting violence against journalists.
Earlier this year, the UK government said it would require the Iranian state to register everything it does to exert political influence in the UK, because of what it called increasingly aggressive activity.
The first thing you notice when immigration officers stop a possible illegal moped delivery driver is the speed in which the suspect quickly taps on their mobile.
“We’re in their WhatsApp groups – they’ll be telling thousands now that we’re here… so our cover is blown,” the lead immigration officer tells me.
“It’s like a constant game of cat and mouse.”
Twelve Immigration Enforcement officers, part of the Home Office, are joining colleagues from Avon and Somerset Police in a crackdown on road offences and migrants working illegally.
The West of England and Wales has seen the highest number of arrests over the last year for illegal workers outside of London.
“It is a problem… we’re tackling it,” Murad Mohammed, from Immigration Enforcement, says. He covers all the devolved nations.
“This is just one of the operations going on around the country, every day of the week, every month of the year.”
Image: Murad Mohammed, from Immigration Enforcement, says his team are attempting to tackle the issue
Just outside the Cabot Circus shopping complex, we stop a young Albanian man who arrived in the UK on the back of a truck.
He’s on an expensive and fast-looking e-bike, with a new-looking Just Eat delivery bag.
He says he just uses it for “groceries” – but the officer isn’t buying it. He’s arrested, but then bailed instantly.
We don’t know the specifics of his case, but one officer tells me this suspected offence won’t count against his asylum claim.
Such is the scale of the problem – the backlog, loopholes and the complexity of cases – that trying to keep on top of it feels impossible.
This is one of many raids happening across the UK as part of what the government says is a “blitz” targeting illegal working hotspots.
Angela Eagle, the border security and asylum minister, joins the team for an hour at one of Bristol’sretail parks, scattered with fast food chains and, therefore, delivery bikes.
Image: Border security and asylum minister, Angela Eagle, speaks to Sky News
She says arrests for illegal working are up over the last year by 51% from the year before, to more than 7,000.
“If we find you working, you can lose access to the hotel or the support you have [been] given under false pretences,” she said.
“We are cracking down on that abuse, and we intend to keep doing so.”
There are reports that asylum seekers can rent legitimate delivery-driver accounts within hours of arriving in the country – skipping employment legality checks.
Uber Eats, Deliveroo, and Just Eat all told Sky News they’re continuing to strengthen the technology they use to remove anyone working illegally.
But a new Border Security Bill, working its way through Parliament, could see companies fined £60,000 for each illegal worker discovered, director disqualifications and potential prison sentences of up to five years.
“I had them all in to see me last week and I told them in no uncertain terms that we take a very tough line on this kind of abuse and they’ve got to change their systems so they can drive it out and off their platforms,” the minister tells me.
For some of those who arrive, a bike and a phone provide a way to repay debts to gang masters.
There were eight arrests today in Bristol, one or two taken into custody, but it was 12 hours of hard work by a dozen immigration officers and the support of the police.
As two mopeds are pushed onto a low-loader, you can’t help but feel, despite the best intentions, that at the moment, this is a losing battle.
We see the boat from a distance – the orange of the life jackets reflected in the rising sun.
And as we draw closer, we can make out dozens of people crowded on board as it sets off from the shore, from a beach near Dunkirk.
There is no sign of any police activity on the shore, and there are no police vessels in the water.
Instead, the migrants crammed into an inflatable dinghy are being watched by us, on board a private boat, and the looming figure of the Minck, a French search and rescue ship that soon arrives.
Image: Minck, a French search and rescue ship, shadows the boat
The dinghy meanders. It’s not heading towards Britain but rather hugging the coast.
A few of the passengers wave at us cheerfully, but then the boat starts to head back towards the shore.
Image: Sky’s Adam Parsons at the scene
As it nears a different beach, we see a police vehicle – a dune buggy – heading down to meet it.
Normal practice is for French police officers to slice through the material of any of these small boats that end up back on shore.
Two police officers get out of the buggy and wait. A police helicopter arrives and circles above, performing a tight circle over the heads of the migrants.
The police think they might be about to go back on to the beach; in fact, these passengers know that most of them are staying put.
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The boat stops a short distance from the shore and four people jump out. As they wade towards the beach, the boat turns and starts to head back out to sea.
We see the two police officers approach these four men and have a brief conversation.
They don’t appear to check the bags they are carrying and, if they do question them about why they left the boat, it is the most cursory of conversations.
In reality, these people probably don’t speak French but they were almost certainly involved in arranging this crossing, which is against the law. But all four walk away, disappearing into the dunes at the back of the beach.