‘THIS report has found that there was no lawful justification for my son’s killing by the police.
‘He was shot eight times in only two seconds and not one of these shots was lawfully discharged by the officer concerned.’
This was the statement by Azelle Rodney’s mother, Susan Alexander, yesterday at a press conference following the publication of the report – by Inquiry chairman, judge Christopher Holland – into her son’s death on 30 April 2005.
Alexander stressed: ‘Azelle’s death was wholly avoidable.
‘When I gave evidence to the inquiry on 2nd September 2012, I said that it seemed to me that Azelle “was executed”.
‘The chairman’s report, after a detailed study of the evidence, is that he is “sure and satisfied” he shares my view.
‘I do not seek to justify what Azelle was doing on the day he died.
‘But he was entitled to be apprehended and, if there was evidence, to be charged and brought before a court of law to face trial before a jury.
‘The fact that he was strongly suspected in being involved in crime does not justify him or anyone else being summarily killed.
‘The shooter’s conduct is now a matter for the IPCC (Independent Police Complaints Commission) and CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) to look at, just as if this was an unlawful killing verdict after an inquest, so I am not going to comment further on him.
‘What I want is no more delays. It’s taken me eight years to get to this point.’
She called on the IPCC and CPS to ‘work tirelessly’ to ‘see what is possible within the law’, and for Home Secretary May to promise ‘no expense will be spared’.
Alexander concluded: ‘I should not have to wait a moment longer for the police and IPCC to apologise unreservedly to me.
‘The police owe me an apology for the unlawful killing of my son, but they also owe me and everyone who was in Hale Lane, Edgware, when police carried out the hard stop, an apology for the way tactics were decided that day…I await an apology from the (Met) Commissioner himself.
‘The IPCC owe me an apology for a wholly inadequate investigation in 2005. Everyone involved in suppressing the aerial evidence should be ashamed of themselves.
‘The IPCC’s failure to make proper use of the technical information, and their uncritical thinking about the police, is shocking.’
The Alexander family’s solicitor Daniel Machover told the press conference: ‘This was an unlawful killing.
‘Uniquely, a police shooting has been found to violate the right to life of someone because of the planning of the police operation and the conduct of the officer who fired the shots.’
Machover noted: ‘The (inquiry) chairman finds he is “sure and satisfied” that the shooter did not honestly believe that Susan’s son had, one, picked up a weapon and, two, was about to use one.
‘The shooter’s honest belief was no more or less than the existence of a generalised threat; and he acted on that “by way of an immediate burst of fire seemingly as a pre-emptive measure”.
‘Sir Christopher Holland finds that, as Azelle was not engaged in any attack justifying shooting at sight, it was not reasonably necessary for E7 to shoot at him, even once.
‘The chairman finds that there was no lawful justification for shooting to kill, whether applying the domestic criminal law or otherwise.’