Police officers on trial over shootings will not be named, says Cooper

FIREARMS officers on trial over police shootings will not be named unless they are convicted, the Home Secretary has announced.

- Martyn Brown

Yvette Cooper yesterday unveiled a string of reforms in the wake of Sgt Martyn Blake being cleared of murdering gang member Chris Kaba.

He has gone into hiding, despite being acquitted, after gangsters put a £10,000 bounty on his head.

Former senior officers had criticised the decision to charge Sgt Blake and there has been anger over him being publicly identified ahead of the trial.

Ms Cooper told MPs a review of how police who take fatal shots on duty are held to account found the system was "not commanding the confidence of either the public or the police". Sgt Blake, 40, was cleared by a jury of murder in Streatham, South London, in September 2022.

Escape

He had fired once through the windscreen of an Audi Q8 in which Kaba, 24, was trying to escape a police road block.