A man shot dead by an armed officer during a foiled prison break plot was lawfully killed after a “catalogue of failings” in the Met Police operation, an inquiry has found.
Jermaine Baker, 28, was part of a three-man team who were planned to spring Turkish gangster Izzet Eren from custody as he was being transferred to Wood Green crown court in December 2015.
Mr Baker was shot by one of the armed officers – W80 – when police intercepted the stolen Audi in which they were waiting for Eren’s prison van to arrive.
After a wide-ranging inquiry into the shooting, chairman Clement Goldstone QC concluded the officer had lawfully fired the fatal shot when he – wrongly – believed Mr Baker was reaching for a gun.
But in a damning report for the Met, the chairman levelled a string of criticisms at the force for the way the “slapdash” police operation was handled, concluding the inquiry report should be a “wake-up call” for the incoming Commission to replace Dame Cressida Dick.
“I cannot help but believe and observe that if Mr Baker had not been fatally shot, none of the shortcomings in planning and execution which this inquiry has exposed would have come to light and the operation would have been hailed as an outstanding success by and for the MPS”, he said.
“If it achieves little else, therefore, this inquiry should serve as a loud wake-up call to the newly-appointed Commissioner.”
The inquiry concluded that the Met’s handling of the operation had led to a “chaotic” interception by armed officers, with increased risks to officers and those in the car.
The inquiry heard how Eren, a leading member of the Tottenham Turks gang, was due to be sentenced on December 11, 2015 on a gun charge, but the Met learned of a plot led by his cousin, Ozcan Eren, to break him out of custody.
Operation Ankaa was launched in October 2015, led by Detective Chief Inspector Neil Williams, with surveillance officers deployed and a bug placed in the Audi car that Mr Baker was shot dead in.
A police plan was hatched to intercept the car and extract the occupants was devised, but senior officers failed to consider other possibilities.
No notes were taken in police planning meetings, as DCI Williams adopted an “arrogant, dismissive attitude towards formality and a failure to appreciate the importance of accountability and maintaining an audit trail”, the inquiry found.
Police knew of an aborted prison break plot on October 29, 2015, but failed to pass on details to the prison service in favour of letting the plot develop.
Mr Goldstone said police had the chance to bring their operation to an end at that point, by sparking increased prison security around Eren, but had deliberately chosen not to.
“It was widely recognised that re-categorisation would have led to the end of Operation Ankaa – Izzet Eren would have been moved from HMP Wormwood Scrubs, in all probability to HMP Belmarsh, with the sentencing hearing moved to Woolwich crown court, to which he would have travelled via an underground tunnel to which the public do not have access,” he said.
The retired barrister and judge identified a series of “failures of planning and management”, including DCI Williams’ decision not to pass on to colleagues intelligence he received at just before 7am on the morning of the attempted prison break - that the occupants of the car had only managed to obtain an imitation firearm.
There was a “lack of intelligence” around who would be in the Audi, whether the vehicle’s windows were tinted, and the position of car in relation to other vehicles, the chairman concluded.
Armed officers “were deployed to the Audi mission vehicle with a working strategy that increased rather than minimised risk”, the report said.
“They did so without even the knowledge of how many individuals were in the Audi mission vehicle, and they had no plans for achieving sight into it and for communication with subjects.
“This led to an extraction that was somewhat chaotic and unprofessional.”
The inquiry highlighted that DCI Williams had enough evidence from 8am that morning to carry out the arrests of the Audi occupants for plotting a prison break. But he chose to let the operation continue in a bid to catch them red-handed, securing longer prison sentences.
Mr Goldstone rejected suggestions that the failures of DCI Williams amounted to unlawful killing, but said the officer – who retired before facing disciplinary proceedings – had not adequately balanced the risks to everyone involved in the operation.
Turning to W80, the inquiry chairman concluded Mr Baker was awake, not sleeping as had been claimed, when he was confronted by the armed officer.
He said officers “shouted conflicting instructions” to the three men in the Audi, while one officer “tried to smash the window next to Mr Baker by hitting it with his weapon”.
“W80 opened the front passenger side door and pointed his weapon at Mr Baker”, the report states.
“He told Mr Baker to place his hands on the dashboard. I have accepted W80’s evidence that Mr Baker moved his hands in the direction of the bag that he was wearing.
“As a result of briefings received, W80 believed that the suspects in the car would be armed with weapons and might try to fight their way out of the Audi mission vehicle.
“I have accepted W80’s evidence that he honestly believed that Mr Baker was not complying with the instruction to place his hands on the dashboard and that he was reaching for a firearm.
“W80 shot Mr Baker once. The shot was fired under five seconds after the police began to shout.”
An imitation Uzi machine gun was later recovered from the vehicle, but no viable weapon was found.
The chairman ruled out race being a motive for the shooting, and concluded: “While I am satisfied that the Metropolitan Police Service failed to plan and conduct the operation on 11 December 2015 in such a way as to minimise, to the greatest extent possible, recourse to the use of lethal force, I do not conclude that Mr Baker died as a result of these failures.
“I have concluded that W80 shot Mr Baker because he honestly believed that Mr Baker posed a lethal threat and that it was reasonably necessary for him to shoot in order to defend himself.”
The Crown Prosecution Service concluded in June 2017 that W80 would not face criminal proceedings over the shooting, and the officer was allowed to go back to work.
The inquiry began in February 2020, after a legal battle over the retirement of DCI Williams and amid ongoing court proceedings related to a possible disciplinary hearing for W80.
In her evidence to the inquiry, Mr Baker’s mother Margaret Smith said her son had been “consistently written off” and attempted to explain his involvement in the prison break plot: “I think eventually he wrote himself off.”
The family argued his death was “entirely unnecessary and unjustifiable”, and criticised the “truly reprehensible failures” of the Met during the inquiry hearings.
In a statement after the publication of the report, the Met said: “Since Mr Baker’s death we have made changes to how our firearms command operates in London, including how operations are run and overseen, how we train and support officers involved and how we keep records.
“We are always open to improving our capability to tackle the threat of firearms. We will now take time to carefully study the inquiry’s recommendations before responding in more detail.“
A spokesperson for Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said: “Public trust and confidence in the Met is vital to policing by consent and that is why a robust and transparent public inquiry was so important – not just for Jermaine’s family, but for all Londoners.
“Since Jermaine’s death, the Met have made significant changes to the training, policies and procedures for firearms officers. These are important changes that were long overdue. We will be closely scrutinising the Inquiry’s recommendations to ensure all lessons are learnt and hold the Met to account to prevent the failings identified in this Inquiry from ever being repeated.
“The Mayor is fully committed to holding the Met to account and buildingâ¯the confidence and trust in the police that we all want toâ¯see,â¯and our communities deserve.”
