CPS to get inquiry report on fatal shooting by police

A report into the death of a man who was shot by police in an east London street while walking home from a pub with a wooden table leg will be forwarded to the Crown Prosecution Service this month.

The investigation into the fatal shooting of Harry Stanley last September has now been completed and Surrey Police are to hand a file of evidence to the CPS. Two specialist firearms officers from Scotland Yard, who shot Mr Stanley in the head and hand, have been interviewed by investigating officers.

The Stanley family and the charity Inquest, which investigates deaths in custody, have referred the case to the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions.

Tomorrow the family will meet the Police Complaints Authority, which has been overseeing the Surrey Police inquiry into the shooting, to be told that the investigation has been completed and the report for the CPS is being finalised and is about to be sent.

Mr Stanley's son Jason remains unconvinced that the family will get to the truth of how his father died. "The only people who can tell us what's happened are my old man and the coppers. I don't fancy our chances of a good outcome."

Jason Stanley told The Independent yesterday that he wanted to see the two officers - who have been temporarily removed from firearms duties - be put on trial for the shooting. He said: "If it was anyone else [he] would be on remand right now, not behind a desk getting paid. They were given their guns to protect the public, not just use them for the sake of it."

Harry Stanley was confronted by officers 100 yards from his front door. Minutes earlier, a 999 telephone call from the Alexandra pub in Hackney, east London, had warned police that an Irishman with a shotgun in a plastic bag had just left the bar. Mr Stanley, a Scottish-born painter who had just collected the repaired table leg from his brother, a carpenter, was approached from behind and shot after officers had shouted the warning "Stop! Armed Police!"

Jason said: "What the police done was reckless. Even if my old man had been carrying a gun. They did not close the road off. People could have been walking around or driving past. If that's the way they are trained, then I'm worried about walking the streets.

"He was on his way home when some idiot decided to make a phone call. Why I don't know. As far as I know he had never been in [The Alexandra] before. If you are carrying a sawn-off shotgun, since when do you throw it on the seat and walk to the bar and get a drink of lemonade. I'm no gangster but I know you try and conceal a weapon."