WORLD> Europe
Shot barrister's family to launch legal challenge
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-09-10 17:12

LONDON -- The family of a barrister shot dead by police during an armed siege in west London will go to the High Court on Wednesday to challenge the investigation into his death.

They say Mark Saunders posed no imminent threat to officers or neighbours in the final minutes before he was shot in Markham Square, Chelsea, on May 6.

Police marksmen shot the 32-year-old after a stand-off lasting nearly five hours.

His sister Charlotte Saunders said a judicial review at the High Court in London will examine key aspects of the inquiry into the shooting.

The family's lawyers will ask senior judges to consider whether it was right to allow the police involved in the siege to consult each other before giving written accounts of the event.

The case will also look at whether the police and the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) have been sufficiently open with the family.

"I am not necessarily saying that they (the police at the scene) have chatted to each other and cooked up some story," Charlotte Saunders told BBC radio. "But they are allowed an opportunity to discuss their thoughts with the other people.

"I do question whether they really had to kill my brother. I would have thought over the course of four and half hours something else could have been done instead of having to shoot him.

"All I want to know is what was in the minds of those officers when they decided to take my brother's life."

In a separate statement issued on behalf of the family by the law firm Deighton Guedalla, she asked whether the police marksmen's accounts were "accurate and uninfluenced".

She added: "I do not understand why not one of the officers who shot Mark has been interviewed by the investigators, four months after his death. I feel this goes against any course of natural justice."

The IPCC said it rejected the family's challenge.

"We are very confident that our investigation is robust and being carried out thoroughly and fairly," it said. "It is fully independent of the Metropolitan Police Service."

A police spokesman declined to comment.