‘Police Officers Should Not Be Facing Criminal Prosecution For Doing Their Job’

“Police officers should not be facing criminal prosecution for doing their jobs, as long as they have acted in accordance with their training and the instructions they’re given during the incident”, Hampshire Police Federation has said.

Federation Chair Zoë Wakefield was speaking after a jury at the Old Bailey cleared Met firearms officer Sgt Martyn Blake of murder, following the police shooting of Chris Kaba in September 2022.

Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley commented: “No police officer is above the law, but we have been clear the system holding police to account is broken. I worry about the lack of support officers face for doing their best, but most of all I worry for the public. The more we crush the spirit of good officers, the less they can fight crime.”

Zoë said that the case had been “really worrying” for her members and that she was relieved the jury reached the right decision.

She said: “This is obviously very high profile, an officer being charged with murder. But there are officers who have been charged with various driving offenses, for instance. It goes wider than just this case.

“Police officers should not be facing criminal prosecution for doing their jobs, as long as they have acted in accordance with their training and the instructions that they’re given during the incident.

“There need to be changes in the legislation and I hope that, because of this case being so high profile, those changes will now come and officers will get that protection.

“At the moment police officers are double-checking before they act at incidents, thinking, ‘What’s the potential here? Could I end up being prosecuted?’. Thank goodness the jury came to the right decision on this one, and I hope that the IOPC will come to a similar conclusion.”

Zoë continued: “It is right that there is an investigation when there is a death or serious injury. We’ve got processes in place for that investigation to happen, to make sure that everything was done according to the training. But in this case, everything was done, yet the officer still found himself being charged with murder. It’s a crazy situation.”

Meanwhile the Home Secretary has announced a new legal presumption of anonymity for firearms officers involved in criminal proceedings. Legal thresholds for charging in police use-of-force cases will also be reviewed.

Zoë said: “Unfortunately, this is all too late for Sgt Blake, who’s already had his name and his address in the media, which puts him and his family at risk. There are some really nasty criminals in this country and as police officers we are trying to do everything we can to stop them, and we should have some form of protection for doing that.

“We all are very careful how we appear on social media, making sure that we’re not easily traceable. Sgt Blake should have always had that anonymity.”

Zoë’s message to the media and the public was: “Please support those officers who are put in this awful position just for doing their job.”