On a dawn police raid, the case of Chris Kaba’s shooting still lingers over armed officers

Published

2 months ago

April 30, 2025

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At a midnight briefing in Kentish Town police station in north London, officers are shown a photograph of Danny Downes, a large white man with a wispy beard, who has been linked to a shooting in the area.

Swabs on a bullet casing found at the scene have come back with a match to his DNA.

Intelligence suggests he keeps the gun at home.

In the room are MO19 officers, colleagues of Martyn Blake, the firearms officer who was charged with murder after opening fire on the job.

Blake was acquitted of murdering Chris Kaba last October, but with Wednesday’s police watchdog decision to launch a gross misconduct hearing against Blake, the case still lingers over his unit.

Police officers don’t get paid anything extra for carrying a gun – what they get is the dangerous callouts, and a huge responsibility strapped to their shoulders.

The Kentish town operation, like any shift, is another chance when shots could be fired and split-second risk assessments made in the moment could be scrutinised for months, even years, careers could go on hold with suspended officers publicly named as they go on trial.

They could end up in prison for the most serious of crimes.

“Why risk it?” many asked themselves during the Blake trial, and at one point, it was reported that up to 300 officers had turned in their firearms permits, allowing them to carry weapons.

The burden of high accountability is what a firearms officer carries with them in their holster, and many would argue, not least the victims’ families of police shootings, that is how it should be; the power to kill in the name of the state must be accompanied by the highest scrutiny.

‘Crush the spirit of good officers’

Some campaigners feel they are under-scrutinised and have a habit of being acquitted for their actions, but, after the Martyn Blake verdict the Met Commissioner, Mark Rowley, said the system for holding police to account was “broken,” adding “the more we crush the spirit of good officers – the less they can fight crime”.

In a statement on Wednesday, Assistant Commissioner Lawrence Taylor said: “We know another lengthy process will fall heavily on the shoulders of NX121 (Blake’s code name) and more widely our firearms officers who continue to bravely and tirelessly police the streets of London every day to protect the public.”

Chris Kaba’s family said they welcomed the IOPC’s decision, adding: “We hope this leads to him being removed from the Met Police. What Martyn Blake did was deeply wrong.”

In the Kentish Town briefing room, plans for the operation are set out: room layouts, entry points, cordons, risk assessments.

Then Derek Caroll, a specialist tactical firearms commander, tells the room why it is proportional that the planned dawn raid to arrest Downes should involve officers who carry guns.

Caroll said: “Clearly, he has used the firearm in a public place, so that’s the reason armed officers have been deployed… the subject these officers are going to go up against has either immediate possession of a firearm or access to a firearm.

“Because there is a gun outstanding there is a potential risk – he has a propensity to fire the weapon.”

The point seems obvious and laboured, but the case of Martyn Blake and other shootings has made it clear that this stuff needs to be spelled out as often as possible.

Sergeant Blake had been on a similar mission to these officers when he shot 23-year-old Chris Kaba.

The death of Kaba in September 2022

He and other officers were involved in stopping an Audi Q8 used in a shooting in Brixton.

Arguably, there are more variables trying to stop a car than in a dawn house raid where suspects are usually asleep.

With car stops, they can see you coming, it’s not always clear who is driving, and the vehicle itself can be used as a weapon.

All of this played out in the attempted hard stop of the Audi Q8 in September 2022.

An unmarked police car was following the vehicle when it turned a corner and Blake’s marked vehicle blocked its path.

Officers didn’t know Kaba was driving the car, and with armed officers now on foot, Kaba tried to ram his way out.

Seconds later, he was shot by a single round through the windscreen.

The police watchdog referred Sergeant Blake to the CPS, and he was charged with murder.

In court, he argued that he had opened fire because it was his genuinely held belief that the driver posed an imminent threat to life and in October last year, the jury found him not guilty.

After the verdict, it emerged that days before he was shot, Chris Kaba himself was alleged to have shot someone in a nightclub, chasing his victim outside, shooting him again.

‘Gung-ho’ behaviour

Equality activist Stafford Scott believes the killing of Chris Kaba is part of a pattern of what he called “gung-ho” behaviour from Metropolitan Police officers against black men.

He feels the hard stop was an unnecessarily “reckless” tactic.

He lists other shooting victims such as Jermaine Baker and Mark Duggan and blames “institutional racism” within the force – pointing to the matching findings of the McPherson report of 1999 and the more recent Lousie Casey Inquiry in 2023, which both made damning conclusions about police racism.

The prosecution in Blake’s case didn’t argue that racism played a part in the shooting, but having watched the trial, Scott says it left many questions.

“What we have again is this notion of ‘honestly held belief’ and that’s why we are going to the European courts because we won’t get justice in this system – ‘honestly held belief’ must be rational,” he says.

“And let’s remember there was all this stuff in the media afterwards about what Chris Kaba did before he was shot, but at the time Martyn Blake shot Chris Kaba he didn’t even know it was Chris Kaba behind the wheel. He didn’t know who it was.”

These arguments, and what happened at the scene, will again be played out in a misconduct hearing, which requires a lower threshold of proof than criminal proceedings and could lead to Blake being sacked from the force.

Like tiptoeing armadillos

In the operation in Kentish Town, for the officers strapping on their Sig MCXs and holstering their Glocks, the last thing they want is to have to use them.

They are trained to only open fire if they believe there is a risk to life, and a large part of their training is also in first aid, be that on victims they find at the scene – or on someone who they have felt compelled to shoot themselves.

It is a surreal scene as these heavily tooled-up officers in helmets and body armour stalk through the everyday scene of a dark council estate then, like tiptoeing armadillos, they quietly shuffle up the stairwell with their forcible entry tool kit.

The door is busted down in seconds to the shouts of “armed police!” and after loud negotiations at gunpoint, the highly overweight figure of Downes is brought out and cuffed in his boxer shorts.

The man is so large, it leads to serious debriefing questions afterwards about what to do if a subject is too big to get out of the door and even taking him downstairs is done by bum shuffle.

“There was a knife in a sheet under one of the beds,” says one of the arresting officers to his commander, “and then the firearm found down the side of the sofa, which is quite readily available to the subject.”

“We got him, no shots fired, and we can be nothing but happy with that,” responds the Commander.

Success is ‘where shots aren’t fired’

Afterwards, Commander Caroll tells Sky News: “It’s a satisfaction getting the gun back – but unfortunately, there’s guns out there and we are doing these jobs very regularly.

“We get a gun off the street. We get the person arrested and as with every firearms operation – every successful firearms operation, for the Met and for the country – is one where shots aren’t fired.”

Out of 4,000 operations a year, shots are only fired once or twice, but whenever they are, questions will always be asked.

There is a balance between rigorous accountability for the officer, a process of justice for bereaved families and the impact it may have on policing if officers fear their names could become known in criminal networks after they shot a gang member or if someone’s “honestly held belief” is not enough to keep them from jail.

Campaigners and members of Chris Kaba’s family say the Blake verdict shows that officers can kill without consequence – his colleagues say he has already paid a heavy price for doing what he is trained to do.

When they are not on operations to seize guns, MO19 officers patrol London poised to deal with stabbings, shootings and terrorist attacks – there’s little doubt the public wants them to keep doing that.

Downes, 23, has since pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear of harm and possession of a Class B substance.

He is due to be sentenced in June.

UK

How did your MP vote on Labour’s welfare bill?

Published

4 hours ago

July 1, 2025

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How did your MP vote on Labour's welfare bill?

Labour’s welfare reforms bill has passed, with 335 MPs voting in favour and 260 against.

It came after the government watered down the bill earlier this evening, making a dramatic last-minute concession to the demands of would-be rebel MPs who were concerned about the damage the policy would do to disabled people.

The concessions could end up leaving the government with £5.5bn to make up from either tax rises or cuts elsewhere.

See how your MP voted with our lookup:

The government has a working majority of 166, so it would have taken 84 rebels to defeat the bill.

In total, 49 Labour MPs still voted against the bill despite the concessions. No MPs from other parties voted alongside the government, although three MPs elected for Labour who have since had the whip removed did so.

Which Labour MPs rebelled?

Last week, 127 Labour MPs signed what they called a “reasoned amendment”, a letter stating their objection to the bill as it was.

The government responded with some concessions to try and win back the rebels, which was enough to convince some of them. But they were still ultimately forced to make more changes today.

In total, 68 MPs who signed the initial “reasoned amendment” eventually voted in favour of the bill.

Nine in 10 MPs elected for the first time at the 2024 general election voted with the government.

That compares with fewer than three quarters of MPs who were voted in before that.

A total of 42 Labour MPs also voted in favour of an amendment that would have stopped the bill from even going to a vote at all. That was voted down by 328 votes to 149.

How does the rebellion compare historically?

If the wording of the bill had remained unchanged and 127 MPs or more had voted against it on Tuesday, it would have been up there as one of the biggest rebellions in British parliamentary history.

As it happened, it was still higher than the largest recorded during Tony Blair’s first year as PM, when 47 of his Labour colleagues (including Diane Abbott, John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn, who also voted against the bill on Tuesday) voted no to his plan to cut benefits for single-parent families.

Follow more updates live on the Sky News Politics Hub.

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

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Ryland Headley: Man, 92, who raped and murdered Louisa Dunne in Bristol nearly 60 years ago, jailed for life

Published

12 hours ago

July 1, 2025

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Ryland Headley: Man, 92, who raped and murdered Louisa Dunne in Bristol nearly 60 years ago, jailed for life

A 92-year-old man has been sentenced to life with a minimum term of 20 years in prison for the rape and murder of an elderly widow nearly 60 years ago.

Ryland Headley was found guilty on Monday of killing 75-year-old Louisa Dunne at her Bristol home in June 1967, in what is thought to be the UK’s longest cold case to reach trial, and has been told by the judge he “will die in prison”.

The mother-of-two’s body was found by neighbours after Headley, then a 34-year-old railway worker, forced his way inside the terraced house in the Easton area before attacking her.

Police found traces of semen and a palm print on one of the rear windows inside the house – but it was about 20 years before DNA testing.

The case remained unsolved for more than 50 years until Avon and Somerset detectives sent off items from the original investigation and found a DNA match to Headley.

He had moved to Suffolk after the murder and served a prison sentence for raping two elderly women in 1977.

Prosecutors said the convictions showed he had a “tendency” to break into people’s homes at night and, in some cases, “target an elderly woman living alone, to have sex with her despite her attempts to fend him off, and to threaten violence”.

Headley, from Ipswich, who did not give evidence, denied raping and murdering Ms Dunne, but was found guilty of both charges after a trial at Bristol Crown Court.

Detectives said forces across the country are investigating whether Headley could be linked to other unsolved crimes.

Mrs Dunne’s granddaughter, Mary Dainton, who was 20 when her relative was killed, told the court that her murder “had a big impact on my mother, my aunt and her family.

“I don’t think my mother ever recovered from it. The anxiety caused by her mother’s brutal rape and murder clouded the rest of her life.

“The fact the offender wasn’t caught caused my mother to become and remain very ill.

“When people found out about the murder, they withdrew from us. In my experience, there is a stigma attached to rape and murder.”

Finding out her grandmother’s killer had been caught after almost six decades “turned my life upside down,” she said.

“I feel sad and very tired, which has affected the relationships I have with those close to me. I didn’t expect to deal with something of such emotional significance at this stage of my life.

“It saddens me deeply that all the people who knew and loved Louisa are not here to see that justice has been done.”

After her statement, Mr Justice Sweeting told Mrs Dainton: “It is not easy to talk about matters like this in public.

“Thank you very much for doing it in such a clear and dignified way.”

The judge told Headley his crimes showed “a complete disregard for human life and dignity.

“Mrs Dunne was vulnerable, she was a small elderly woman living alone. You treated her as a means to an end.

“The violation of her home, her body and ultimately her life was a pitiless and cruel act by a depraved man.

“She must have experienced considerable pain and fear before her death,” he said.

Sentencing Headley to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 20 years, the judge told him: “You will never be released, you will die in prison.”

Detective Inspector Dave Marchant of Avon and Somerset Police said Headley was “finally facing justice for the horrific crimes he committed against Louisa in 1967.

“The impact of this crime has cast a long shadow over the city and in particular Louisa’s family, who have had to deal with the sadness and trauma ever since.”

The officer praised Ms Dainton’s “resilience and courage” during what he called a “unique” case and thanked investigators from his own force, as well as South West Forensics, detectives from Suffolk Constabulary, the National Crime Agency and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

Charlotte Ream, of the CPS, described Headley’s crimes as “appalling”.

She said Louisa Dunne “died in a horrifying attack carried out in the place where she should have felt safest – her own home.

“Mrs Dunne’s death continues to have a traumatic impact on her family members: the passage of time has not lessened their pain.

“For 58 years, this appalling crime went unsolved and Ryland Headley, the man we now know is responsible, avoided justice.”

Jeremy Benson KC, defending Headley, offered no personal mitigation on behalf of the defendant.

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Three members of Lucy Letby hospital’s senior leadership team arrested

Published

13 hours ago

July 1, 2025

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Three members of Lucy Letby hospital's senior leadership team arrested

Three managers at the hospital where Lucy Letby worked have been arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter.

They were in senior roles at the Countess of Chester Hospital in 2015 and 2016 and have been bailed pending further enquiries, Cheshire Constabulary said. Their names have not been made public.

Letby, 35, was found guilty of murdering seven children and attempting to murder seven more between June 2015 and June 2016 while working in the hospital’s neonatal unit.

Detective Superintendent Paul Hughes explained that gross negligent manslaughter focuses on the “action or inaction of individuals”.

There is also an investigation into corporate manslaughter at the hospital, which began in October 2023.

That focuses on “senior leadership and their decision-making”, Mr Hughes said. The intention there is to determine whether any “criminality has taken place concerning the response to the increased levels of fatalities”.

The scope was widened to include gross negligence manslaughter in March of this year.

Mr Hughes said it is “important to note” that this latest development “does not impact on the convictions of Lucy Letby for multiple offences of murder and attempted murder”.

He added: “Both the corporate manslaughter and gross negligence manslaughter elements of the investigation are continuing and there are no set timescales for these.

“Our investigation into the deaths and non-fatal collapses of babies at the neo-natal units of both the Countess of Chester Hospital and the Liverpool Women’s Hospital between the period of 2012 to 2016 is also ongoing.”

A public inquiry has also been examining the hospital’s response to concerns raised about Letby before her arrest.

In May, it was announced the inquiry’s final report into how the former nurse was able to commit her crimes will now be published early next year.

Earlier this year, lawyers for Lucy Letby called for the suspension of the inquiry, claiming there was “overwhelming and compelling evidence” that her convictions were unsafe.

In February, an international panel of neonatologists and paediatric specialists told reporters that poor medical care and natural causes were the reasons for the collapses and deaths.

Their evidence has been passed to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which investigates potential miscarriages of justice, and Letby’s legal team hopes her case will be referred back to the Court of Appeal.