Suella Braverman accused of trying to ‘derail’ Chris Kaba murder case

Suella Braverman has been accused of trying to “delegitimise” the Chris Kaba murder case by expressing her support for armed police officers.

It comes after more than 100 officers handed in their weapons at the weekend to protest one of their colleagues being charged with the murder of Kaba, a 24-year-old Black man, in south London.

The Ministry of Defence, which was ready to send in soldiers as police cover, has since told troops to stand down as firearms officers returned to duty yesterday. But the revolt led the home secretary to order a review of armed police and say officers “mustn’t fear ending up in the dock”.

Chantelle Lunt, founder of Merseyside Black Lives Matter Alliance and Merseyside Alliance for Racial Equality said the protest was “absolutely disgraceful”.

Responding to the actions of officers and Braverman’s comments, she said: “My concern is that this is just the first step in a campaign that is going to delegitimise the whole case, possibly derail it or get it thrown out, and completely undermine the course of justice while in the same breath, destroying the legacy of Chris Kaba and painting him as a criminal,” she said, adding: “I don’t know how [Kaba’s] family must be feeling.”

Kaba was killed by a single bullet after being ‘silently’ followed by an unmarked police vehicle with no blue lights or siren, while driving his car through Streatham Hill last September. The officer who killed him, known only as NX121, was charged and released on bail last week.

In an announcement of the decision to charge NX121 with murder, Rosemary Ainslie, head of the CPS Special Crime Division, said: “It is extremely important there should be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice these proceedings.”

Yet within days, Braverman – a former attorney general – took to X (formerly Twitter) to defend firearms officers and announce the launch of a review to ensure cops who “have to make split-second decisions” have the “confidence to do their jobs”. This was backed by both the prime minister and the Met Police commissioner Mark Rowley.

In an open letter, Rowley wrote: “Officers need sufficient legal protection to enable them to do their job and keep the public safe, and the confidence that it will be applied consistently and without fear or favour.”

A member of the Copwatch police monitoring network in London told openDemocracy: “It galls me to see the police and the politicians playing together and pretending that policing is not political. Citizens of the UK need to be extremely active about what the government is doing in their name.

“You should fear accountability as a deterrent. That's what the legal system and prosecution is for. Of course you should be thinking: 'I'm about to take this person's life. Is it murder?' Of course you should be thinking that. They should be drilled into thinking that way so it becomes instant and reflexive.”

Braverman has been accused by legal experts of committing contempt of court by prejudicing a live murder trial with her social media posts.

Katrina Ffrench, founder and director of UNJUST UK, a group that challenges discrimination in the criminal legal system, warned that due process, which refers to a person’s fair treatment within the rules of the legal system, isn’t being followed.

She told openDemocracy that armed cops refusing their duties is “actually quite hypocritical”. “If they trust the process that they go to work every day and uphold, why are they not giving it an opportunity to find innocence or guilt in one of their colleagues?” she said.

“The home secretary appears to have sought to influence public opinion in this case by saying that there’s a review needed. When Braverman and Mark Rowley are speaking about a review, it’s about strengthening protection of officers. To say that this officer needs protecting feels very prejudicial when the case is yet to be heard. Maybe it’s the public that needs protecting.”

She continued: “A Black man was killed during a police operation – his family and society deserve answers to why that happened. It's not enough to know it was a police operation. We need to understand whether [it] was carried out in a lawful manner.”

'Don't worry about scrutiny and accountability. We’ve got your back.’ That’s the message coming from the Home Office

The Alliance for Police Accountability campaign group said Braverman’s comments were a “direct attack on the Chris Kaba campaign and demand for justice”. Chair Lee Jasper said: “The home secretary has personally intervened to give succour and comfort to those officers who take the perspective that Chris Kaba’s family's campaign to get justice is nothing more than a sort of anti-policing effort. And we wouldn’t have this talk in the police if it wasn’t for the home secretary, who seeks to try and make the ‘war on woke’ her main political strategy.”

On the home secretary backing armed firearms officers in their protest, Jasper added: “‘Don't worry about scrutiny and accountability. We’ve got your back.’ That’s the message that’s coming directly from the Home Office.”

As an ex-Merseyside police officer, Lunt said firearms police protesting came as no shock to her. “This is what the armed response team has done before. They threatened to not carry weapons and within days, the whole narrative has been flipped from an unarmed dad-to-be being fatally shot through the window of his car, to the fears and concerns of armed police officers.”

Lunt drew parallels with Harry Stanley, who was shot by Met officers in Hackney in 1999 when the police thought the table leg he was carrying was a shotgun. Over 100 armed cops refused to carry their weapons after two of their colleagues were suspended in the aftermath of Stanley’s killing. In that case, the CPS decided not to prosecute the officers in 2005, while the police watchdog ruled that their actions were “appropriate in the circumstances”.

Referring to Braverman’s call for a review backed by Rowley and Rishi Sunak, Lunt said: “If I was an officer in the Met, I wouldn't be worried at all. Because they're showing us who they're in support of.”