A misconduct panel has cleared a police officer of using excessive force after he fired two shots at a stolen car which mounted a footpath and drove directly towards him.
The incident happened on the Glen Road in west Belfast on 1 April 2006. Police had mounted a checkpoint to intercept the stolen Volkswagen Golf, which had earlier been used in a domestic burglary and a theft from a supermarket.
After spotting the car travelling county-bound on the Glen Road, a police patrol set up a checkpoint at the junction of the Glen Road and Shaw’s Road. Two officers got out of the patrol car and after seeing the stolen vehicle stopped in traffic, approached it on foot.
As they did so the car was driven towards the officers, who later told Police Ombudsman investigators that they had feared for their safety. The officers stepped back onto the footpath and started to move back towards the junction.
The Volkswagen then mounted the footpath and continued in their direction. As the officers moved in separate directions out of the path of the car, both drew their firearms and trained them on the driver of the car.
Officer fired two shots aimed at driver's chest.
The officers said they shouted several warnings at the driver to “stop the car, get out, or we’ll shoot.” When it failed to do so, one of the officers (Police Officer 1) said he fired two shots through the windscreen, aimed at the driver’s chest. The other officer did not shoot.
Police Officer 1 said that he fired the shots because he feared for his life, or at the very least that he would be seriously injured.
The car then passed him and came to a temporary standstill, only to be driven off down the Shaw’s Road as he approached the vehicle. It was later recovered a short distance away. Its occupants were never identified.
As with all discharges of police firearms in Northern Ireland, the incident was referred by the Chief Constable to the Police Ombudsman for independent investigation.
The Police Ombudsman’s on-call team went to the scene and liaised with specialist forensic, mapping and photography personnel. House-to-house enquiries were conducted, and statements obtained from police and civilian witnesses.
First shot fired as the car was passing, second after it had passed the officer.
Relevant police radio transmissions and documentation was obtained, and the recovered Volkswagen Golf was submitted for forensic analysis. This revealed that the first shot had struck the rear driver’s side door of the Volkswagen, and had been fired when the car had been alongside Police Officer 1. The forensic report stated: “The low angle of entry into the vehicle would indicate either a shot fired from around waist height or from shoulder height if the firer was ducking or crouching down.”
The second shot hit the car just in front of the petrol filler cap. “At this point the car would have gone past (Police Officer 1) and been driving away from him and his colleagues,” stated the report.
Police Officer 1 was subject to two criminal interviews in relation to the offence of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life or cause serious injury to property.
He denied any offence and insisted that he had fired two shots at the driver through the windscreen of the car as he believed this was the only option open to him at a moment in which he genuinely believed he was going to be killed or seriously injured.
A file was submitted to the Public Prosecution Service which directed that Police Officer 1 should not be prosecuted.
Such use of force was unjustified and unneccesary.
However, the Police Ombudsman concluded that the use of force by had been unjustified and unnecessary, given that forensic analysis indicated that the Volkswagen Golf had already passed Police Officer 1 when he discharged the shots. As a result, the Police Ombudsman recommended that Police Officer 1 should be disciplined, and disciplinary sanctions were subsequently imposed by the PSNI.
Police Officer 1 later appealed against the sanctions, and when his case was heard by a misconduct panel, a decision was taken that the charge against Police Officer 1 should be dismissed.
The panel concluded that there was insufficient evidence that the firearm had been unnecessarily discharged and accepted the officer’s account that the car was being driven directly towards him and that he had been in genuine fear of losing his life or sustaining serious injury.