IPCC admits it may have ‘inadvertently’ misled journalists
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has confirmed that it may have ‘inadvertently’ given reporters misleading information in the early stages of the investigation into the death of Mark Duggan.
The death of police shooting victim Mark Duggan was the trigger that led to the first night of rioting in London. The first riot followed a peaceful protest over the death of the 29-year-old.
It was initially reported that Duggan shot at police, but ballistic tests later found that a bullet which lodged itself into a police officer's radio was police issue, consistent with being fired from a Metropolitan Police Heckler and Koch MP5.
The IPCC said in a statement today: “Analysis of media coverage and queries raised on Twitter have alerted us to the possibility that we may have inadvertently given misleading information to journalists when responding to very early media queries following the shooting of Mark Duggan by Metropolitan Police Service officers on the evening of August 4.
“The IPCC's first statement, issued at 22.49 on August 4, makes no reference to shots fired at police and our subsequent statements have set out the sequence of events based on the emerging evidence.
“However, having reviewed the information the IPCC received and gave out during the very early hours of the unfolding incident, before any documentation had been received, it seems possible that we may have verbally led journalists to believe that shots were exchanged, as this was consistent with early information we received that an officer had been shot and taken to hospital.
“Any reference to an exchange of shots was not correct and did not feature in any of our formal statements, although an officer was taken to hospital after the incident.”