UK: High Court overturns jury's verdict in Harry Stanley case
01 March 2005
The family of Harry Stanley, a 46-year old Irish man who was shot dead by Metropolitan police officers as he left a public house in September 1999, has expressed "outrage" at the overturning of the unlawful killing verdict secured at his inquest by the High Court. Harry was shot in the head as he returned home from his local public house when SO19 officers mistook a table leg that he was carrying for a gun; Inspector Neil Sharman and PC Kevin Fagan were acting on a tip-off that warned them of an Irish man with a sawn-off shotgun. An inquest took place in June 2003 and a jury returned a unanimous "open" verdict after it was denied the opportunity to consider whether he was unlawfully killed by coroner Dr Stephen Chan. As a result of Chan's procedural errors the family took a judicial review of the decision which ordered that a fresh inquest take place, In October 2004 the second inquest jury returned an unlawful killing verdict (see
Statewatch Vol. 10 no 2, Vol. 13 no 1, 2).
Harry's wife, Irene, has condemned the High Court ruling, saying: "With everybody's help I intend to fight on and to challenge this decision. Harry was unarmed and two inquest juries did not believe that the police officers were under threat when they shot him dead. The attempt to turn the police officer who killed my husband into a victim has further compounded the injustice suffered by my family." Deborah Coles of INQUEST, an organisation that works directly with the families of those who die in custody and who has worked closely with the Stanley family, pointed out that the High Court's verdict "puts police officers above the law" and argued that "The rule of law must apply equally to all citizens including those in police uniform." Irene's solicitor, Daniel Machover, said that "Today's judgement doesn't allow for the obvious possibility that the jury rejected any basis for the shooting to be lawful". He continued: "[the ruling] calls into question the current criminal law of murder and the conduct of criminal trials and inquests in similar cases."
INQUEST website: www.inquest.org.uk; INQEST press release 12.5.05.