If we don't back our police marksmen, we'll live to regret it - and more black children will die on our streets, says ex-firearms officer CHRIS DONALDSON

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The Old Bailey jury’s verdict of not guilty in the case of Sergeant Martyn Blake was met with huge relief in Government and policing. The Met Commissioner would not have to deal with the risk of police officers handing in their firearms – not this week anyway.

It was no idle threat – had the jury found Sergeant Blake guilty of the murder of Chris Kaba there would almost certainly have been a repeat of the scenes when, after the officer was first charged last September, they did exactly that. The Met then had to call in the Ministry of Defence to maintain firearms policing coverage across the capital.

The Government believes it has a ‘narrow path’ to tread when it comes to the system of police accountability. On one side maintaining the confidence of officers to do their job; on the other the confidence of what the Government and others often describe as the ‘black community’.

I was an armed police officer for eight years and a founder member of the Black Police Association. To me, my sons, mother and siblings the idea of a single ‘black community’ is anathema. Who is part of this ‘black community’? Are we a single homogeneous group? Who speaks for us? Certainly not the anti-police activists who have made so much of the noise about this case over the last two years. Are all blacks welcome or only those who maintain the approved viewpoint?

Had the jury found Sergeant Blake guilty of the murder of Chris Kaba there would almost certainly have been a repeat of the scenes when, after the officer was first charged last September. firearms police handed in their weapons

This week the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police was one of those who issued a statement directly addressing ‘black communities’.

Ike Ijeh, a colleague of mine at the Policy Exchange think tank and an architect – an actual architect, unlike Mr Kaba who was apparently ‘aspiring’ to the profession alongside his criminal activities – said in response: ‘This incessant pandering to “black communities” is toxic, divisive and insulting. My race lends me no more cultural kinship with Chris Kaba than [Met Commissioner Sir Mark] Rowley’s does with Fred West. There are only two communities the police should be interested in, those who commit crimes and those who don’t.’

A frequent refrain is that the ‘black community’ is ‘over-policed’. It is a term which has found its way into a whole host of policies – not least the national Police Race Action Plan. The deployment of the ‘over-policing’ concept is pernicious – primarily because it ignores the real crisis in our capital city rather than the phantom which anti-police activists have conjured.

In 2023 there were 109 homicides in London – 46 per cent of the victims were black compared with only 13.5 per cent of London’s population. Of them 18 were aged 19 or younger – four were aged 12 or younger. At a 2022 Policy Exchange event Sir Trevor Phillips said: ‘There are more than 100 young men being killed every year in this city. Many, many, many more being maimed in unpleasant and vicious ways. Why is this an issue? Well, of course, because all these people are black. Literally, almost all of them are black. And of course, let’s not beat the beat about the bush here, the perpetrators are also black.’

I was an armed police officer for eight years and a founder member of the Black Police Association. To me, my sons, mother and siblings the idea of a single ‘black community’ is anathema. Pictured: CHRIS DONALDSON

Prior to his appointment, Sir Mark Rowley, said (in a 2019 Policy Exchange report) that part of an unprecedented challenge to effective policing was the ‘disempowerment of police both by the curtailing of police powers and also the bureaucratic stifling hands of the IOPC [Independent Office for Police Conduct] and HMICFRS [His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services] that disincentivise police use of powers.’

It is welcome that following the not-guilty verdict the Home Secretary announced changes to the police accountability regime. The most important step will be the planned review by the Director of Public Prosecutions of the guidance for Crown Prosecutors relating to the prosecution of police officers acting on behalf of the State. Whether that provides Prosecutors with the confidence not to prosecute cases which, like Sergeant Blake’s, should never see a trial is to be seen.

The Government must continue to demonstrate it is on the side of the law-abiding majority and the police officers who keep us safe by facing down its own anti-police activists and the legal ‘blob’ that support them.

If police officers don’t have the confidence that they can use the powers provided to them by Parliament without facing prosecution or vexatious complaints, more of these children – who are disproportionately more likely to be black – will die on our streets.

• Chris Donaldson is a Senior Fellow with Policy Exchange and a former Police Inspector and Firearms Officer and Trainer