Chris Kaba shot man in legs in London nightclub days before he was killed

Chris Kaba, the unarmed man killed by a police firearms officer, was pictured on CCTV shooting a man on a nightclub dancefloor and was alleged to be a core member of a London gang, it was revealed yesterday.

- Vikram Dodd

A judge ruled that details of Kaba's criminal past could be released, the day after a Metropolitan police officer, Martyn Blake, was cleared of murdering him.

Details of Kaba's past offending were not put before the jury in the murder trial at the Old Bailey because the judge, Mr Justice Goss, ruled they were not relevant.

Blake, at the point he pulled the trigger on 5 September 2022, did not know these details and did not know who was in the Audi Q8, which police believed was linked to a firearms incident the night before.

After Kaba was shot, the car he had been driving was examined. The Audi, worth almost £100,000, contained a passport belonging to a man named Marcus Pottinger.

Also in the boot were court paperwork and other letters belonging to Connel Bamgboye, a former music producer once convicted of county lines drug dealing. Earlier in 2022, he had been driving the same Audi when stopped by armed police.

This year, Pottinger, Bamgboye and a third man were convicted of offences linked to a shooting on 30 August 2022 in the Oval Space nightclub in Hackney, east London, and were jailed.