Police marksman who shot Chris Kaba ‘no RoboCop’, jurors told

Metropolitan Police officer Martyn Blake, 40, has denied Mr Kaba’s murder.

Chris Kaba, 24, died in London in 2022 (Family Handout/PA) (PA Media)

The police marksman on trial for killing Chris Kaba was no “RoboCop” with the “nanosecond” reactions of a computer, a court has heard.

Metropolitan Police officer Martyn Blake shot 24-year-old Mr Kaba in the head through the windscreen of an Audi Q8 which had been linked to a shotgun incident the night before.

The Old Bailey has heard how unarmed Mr Kaba knew the police were following him and when surrounded by armed response vehicles had tried to smash and ram his way out.

On Friday, defence barrister Patrick Gibbs KC told jurors that Blake was not a “RoboCop with total vision and nanosecond reactions like a computer” and perceived danger in the moment could not be captured in a “freeze frame”.

He said: “If the way he saw the world was like the internal screen of RoboCop, able to respond just like that to everything, then maybe you would be right as the split second of the shot would be like the split second on screen.

“But he isn’t, it he? None of us is. He is not a robot, he is a human being with a human brain who did this to the best of his ability.”

The enforced stop with extraction the officers had been ordered to carry out was designed to be “totally controlled” but “immediately became chaotic” and “potentially very dangerous”, Mr Gibbs said.

He said officers had lost the “element of surprise” and Mr Kaba was ready, having realised they were following him before he was boxed in in Kirkstall Gardens in Streatham, south London, on the night of September 5 2022.

On what Mr Kaba did next, Mr Gibbs said: “He got the car working, he’s smashing it up to get away. Why? “They cannot do nothing and so they have to persevere on the order they have been given as a team, trusting each other to be in the right place, trusting their training and instincts.”Mr Gibbs suggested the “elephant in the room” may be that Mr Kaba’s behaviour was not that of “someone who was not a threat”.

He added: “The relevance for the officers in assessing risk is that they knew that the driver had an increased opportunity to arm himself if there was a gun in the car.

“The shotgun from the last night was outstanding, as were the suspects and even the victim had not been identified.”

Mr Gibbs said that rather than comply with officer’s orders, Mr Kaba decided to “trash” the Audi by ramming it backwards and forwards and would probably had been able to “screech and grind and wheel-spin his way out”.

In Blake’s mind, in addition to what was already known about the Audi, Mr Kaba’s actions appeared those of a “desperate” and “determined” man behind the wheel of a high-powered car, the court was told.

Mr Gibbs said it was pure “chance” or “fate” that the defendant found himself with the responsibility of taking the decision of what to do next.

On Thursday, prosecutor Tom Little KC alleged the defendant had not told the truth, was “willing to exaggerate”, and parts of his account of events were “fiction”.

He said: “You don’t see the Audi being driven directly towards the defendant, nor the movement to the right to avoid being killed as he claimed in his first account of the incident.

“Nor can the defendant reasonably and honestly have perceived that at the time.

“It’s a fiction. He’s a highly experienced firearms officer… Can he really have got that wrong innocently.

“His account is not true and it cannot honestly have been his belief at the time.”

At the conclusion of the closing speeches, Mr Justice Goss adjourned the trial until Monday when he is expected to sum up the case and send the jury out to deliberate on a verdict.

Blake, 40, has denied Mr Kaba’s murder.