Police detective sacked over botched Mark Duggan gun investigation

The shooting of Mark Duggan by police in 2011 sparked the London riots

A Metropolitan Police detective has been sacked for failing to investigate an assault in Dalston that was made using the gun that was later passed to Tottenham resident Mark Duggan on the day he was shot dead.

Detective Constable Stephen Faulkner had been ordered to investigate after Peter Osadebay was pistol-whipped at the former Lagoon Hair and Beauty Salon in Dalston on 29 July 2011.

DC Faulkner claimed Osadebay refused to identify his attacker, who was later found to be Kevin Hutchinson-Foster.

Hutchinson-Foster gave Mark Duggan the BBM Bruni Model 92 handgun, which was inside a sock drenched in Osadebay’s blood, on 4 August.

Later that day 29-year-old Duggan was fatally shot, the event that sparked the 2011 London riots.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) on Friday published a damning report into Faulkner’s investigation. The 87-page document identified “a number of failures” in his conduct and found the investigation was not “given the priority it should have been”.

Faulkner failed to download CCTV footage of the assault in the beauty salon and share it with fellow officers to help identify Hutchinson-Foster, the IPCC found.

He was also found to have attempted to deceive his supervisor several months later by implying he had circulated the CCTV footage shortly after the incident.

But the IPCC found that even if Faulkner had properly investigated the assault in July 2011, it was “highly unlikely” Hutchinson-Foster would have been identified before handing over the gun to Duggan.

Riots broke out on Mare Street in 2011 after Mark Duggan was killed

According to the report, Operation Trident officers received on 3 August 2011 a tip-off that Hutchinson-Foster was planning on providing Duggan with a gun. The Met Police set up Trident to tackle the capital’s gang and gun crime.

Duggan collected the gun, wrapped in a blood-soaked sock and hidden in a shoebox, on August 4 and was shot dead shortly afterwards.

Hutchinson-Foster was jailed in February 2013 for the assault and firearms offences.

The Metropolitan Police found that Faulkner’s behaviour amounted to misconduct and gross misconduct and dismissed him without notice on Friday night.

IPCC Deputy Chair Sarah Green said: “A number of explanations were put forward as to why the investigation into an assault did not progress as quickly as it should have. Whilst we accept that even if the assault had been promptly investigated, it would have been highly unlikely the assailant could or would have been identified before he provided the gun to Mark Duggan, the investigation was not given the priority it should have been.

“The public needs to feel confident that the police are doing all they can to ensure that these weapons are taken off the streets, including prompt and effective investigations and overcoming perceived difficulties.”