Mark Duggan inquest: police must regain the public’s trust

30 years ago the public would have had no problem believing the police version of events. Not any more

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IN THE WAKE of the Mark Duggan inquest jury’s exoneration of the police who in August 2011 shot dead the 29-year-old mixed race father of six, the increasingly urgent question in the public mind will be ‘Who now takes the word of a police officer as gospel?’

Up to a point, the inquest jury did in that, by a majority of eight to two, it found Duggan (alleged by police at the time of his death to be a major player in armed gang warfare) to have been lawfully shot.

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Robert Chesshyre writes regularly on police culture and is a former US correspondent of The Observer. His books include ‘The Force: Inside the Police’ and 'When the Iron Lady Ruled Britain''.