Former firearms officer Anthony Long had told jury he acted in self defence when he shot 24-year-old without warning

A former police marksman has been cleared of murdering a suspect he shot six times, a killing that the dead man’s mother said had effectively seen her son subjected to the death penalty.

Anthony Long, 58, was cleared by an Old Bailey jury of the murder of Azelle Rodney, 24, whom he shot on sight – four times in the head – in north London in 2005.

Rodney was the third suspect Long had killed in his career. Long said he fired in self-defence.

He said he did not see a gun on Rodney before he opened fire, but he could not wait because intelligence and Rodney’s movements left him convinced the suspect was going to shoot at him and other officers with a machine gun that fired up to 1,000 rounds a minute.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Azelle Rodney, who was shot and killed in 2005. Photograph: Family handout/PA

An official inquiry previously rejected Long’s account and found he had unlawfully killed Rodney. It also found flaws in the Metropolitan police operation that led to the killing.

Rodney was killed in Edgware after police forced a car he was travelling in to stop. Officers said they had intelligence that Rodney was part of a gang, possibly armed with automatic weapons, on its way to rob a Colombian drug gang.

His mother, Susan Alexander, said her son should have been arrested rather than shot, and said the Metropolitan police had still not learned lessons. “He did not deserve to die and we do not have a death penalty in this country,” she said.

Long’s acquittal takes the pressure off police chiefs who would have faced a potential rebellion from armed officers if he had become the first police marksman to be convicted of murdering a suspect.

The jury deliberated for just over 12 hours before announcing that, by a majority, they were not convinced of the prosecution case.

Long, standing in the dock in a grey suit and blue tie, nodded his thanks to the seven women and five men. Sitting nearby, Alexander showed no emotion. Both of them have endured a complaints and criminal justice system that has taken a decade to reach this point.

After the verdict, Long said: “It has been very difficult facing trial for something that happened 10 years ago when I had acted to protect the lives of others as a part of my job and based on my training and experience.

“Police firearms officers do not go out intending to shoot people and, like me in this case, have to make split-second life or death decisions based on the information available to them at the time.”

Long told the jury that as his unmarked police car pulled alongside a silver Golf containing three suspects, Rodney ducked down in the rear seat and came back up. He said Rodney’s movement “seemed a totally unnatural movement to me”, adding: “I have never seen a suspect behave in such a distinct way.”

Long said: “All I had was seconds to make the decision whether I was going to let my colleagues be shot by someone with a submachine gun or whether I was going to take life. I chose to take his life. That was the decision I made and I stand by it.”

Long fired eight times from two metres away. His first two shots missed. Six hit Rodney, who died almost instantly.

Forensic and ballistic tests suggest five bullets hit Rodney as he was falling, appearing to contradict Long’s account that he continued to fire because the suspect remained upright and posed a threat.

The audio track of a video recording of the incident, made by an officer in another car, as well as other data, showed that for Long’s statement to be correct, within two seconds he must have seen Rodney, witnessed all the movements he said the suspect made, assessed that the suspect was about to shoot, decided himself to open fire, and fired eight times. “Mr Long cannot have seen what he claimed,” said the prosecutor Max Hill QC.

Weapons were recovered from the silver Golf but there were no machine guns. One weapon, covered by yellow plastic on the rear seat, could not fire.

A pistol was recovered from the rear footwell, containing four rounds. In the same bag was a keyfob gun containing two rounds of ammunition.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest 2005 photo of police forensics team searching the scene where armed police shot Azelle Rodney. Photograph: Edmond Terakopian/PA

During the trial, the judge, Mr Justice Sweeney ruled that Long was entitled to rely on intelligence, whether it was right or wrong.

In three recent high-profile cases, police marksmen shot suspects after they went into situations with intelligence and briefings from senior officers that they should expect to face mortal danger.

The two officers who shot Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005, after mistaking him for a suicide bomber, claimed his movements convinced them he was going to detonate a device on a London Underground train. They were not charged.

The marksman who shot dead Mark Duggan in 2011, an incident that triggered riots across England, was found by an inquest jury to have imagined Duggan had a gun in his hand. But because of his honest belief that the suspect was preparing to open fire, the officer was found to have acted lawfully.

The officers were protected from a murder charge by arguing that they had an honest belief their life or those of others were in imminent danger.

In Long’s career he has been commended for bravery, disciplined, picked for prestigious firearms teaching roles, insulted by a senior officer and plucked from retirement to face trial.

In the 1980s he shot dead two men in an operation and wounded two other suspects. In 2006 Long won compensation from Scotland Yard after he met the then deputy assistant commissioner Sue Akers at a police leaving drinks. As the pair were introduced, Akers joked: “I’ve always wanted to meet the Met’s very own serial killer.”

The firearms officer threatened to sue for defamation. Scotland Yard settled out of court and he was paid £5,000 for what the force admitted were “inappropriate remarks”.

Rodney’s family fought a 10-year battle, first for a full and public inquiry and then for a murder prosecution. The authorities had previously tried to block an inquiry, claiming the intelligence used by law enforcement came from intercepts, disclosure of which they said was unlawful.

The two other men in the car 10 years ago, Wesley Lovell and Frank Graham, were later convicted of firearms offences. They have since been released from jail.

Alexander said of the pair: “They have walked away from the car with their lives and my son has not.”

She said she was not anti-police – they had a job to do “to serve and protect the public” – and that her decade-long fight had damaged her employment, health and even seen community members shun her because of the serious criminal allegations surrounding her dead son.









