Metropolitan Police officer Martyn Blake, 40, has denied the murder of 24-year-old Chris Kaba, who was fatally shot in London in 2022. The trial, taking place at the Old Bailey, has seen the defence argue that Blake acted as a human, not a robot, in the moments leading up to the shooting.
Chris Kaba was shot through the windscreen of an Audi Q8 linked to a shotgun incident from the previous night. The court heard how Mr Kaba, who was unarmed, was aware he was being followed by police and attempted to escape when he was surrounded by armed response vehicles.
On Friday, defence barrister Patrick Gibbs KC told the jury that Blake was not a “RoboCop” with the “nanosecond” reactions of a computer. He argued that Blake’s perception of danger could not be fully captured in a “freeze frame.”
Gibbs stated: “If the way he saw the world was like the internal screen of RoboCop, able to respond just like that to everything, then maybe you would be right as the split second of the shot would be like the split second on screen. But he isn’t, is he? None of us is. He is not a robot; he is a human being with a human brain who did this to the best of his ability.”
The defence argued that the police operation, designed as a controlled stop, quickly became chaotic and dangerous. Gibbs said officers lost the “element of surprise” as Mr Kaba realized he was being followed before they boxed him in at Kirkstall Gardens in Streatham on the night of September 5, 2022.
Describing Mr Kaba’s actions, Gibbs said: “He got the car working, he’s smashing it up to get away. Why? They cannot do nothing and so they have to persevere on the order they have been given as a team, trusting each other to be in the right place, trusting their training and instincts.”
Gibbs also suggested that Mr Kaba’s behaviour was not that of “someone who was not a threat.” He noted that the police were aware of the outstanding shotgun linked to the Audi and were acting on the assumption that the driver could be armed.
He added: “Rather than comply with the officer’s orders, Mr Kaba decided to ‘trash’ the Audi by ramming it backwards and forwards and would probably have been able to ‘screech and grind and wheel-spin his way out.’”
Gibbs argued that, given the circumstances, Blake perceived Mr Kaba’s actions as those of a “desperate” and “determined” individual in control of a high-powered vehicle.
On Thursday, prosecutor Tom Little KC had challenged Blake’s account, accusing him of fabricating parts of the incident. He told the jury: “You don’t see the Audi being driven directly towards the defendant, nor the movement to the right to avoid being killed as he claimed in his first account of the incident.”
Little added: “It’s a fiction. He’s a highly experienced firearms officer… Can he really have got that wrong innocently? His account is not true and it cannot honestly have been his belief at the time.”
Following closing speeches, Mr. Justice Goss adjourned the trial until Monday when he is expected to sum up the case before sending the jury out to deliberate.
Martyn Blake, 40, denies the charge of murder.
