Enda Brady: UK correspondent on officer Martyn Blake being acquitted of the murder of a man shot dead in London

A British jury has cleared a police officer of murder, after he fatally shot an unarmed black man in the head in south London two years ago.

Martyn Blake shot 24-year-old Chris Kaba in September 2022.

The 40-year-old says he feared lives were in danger, and the shots weren't intended to kill Kaba.

UK correspondent Enda Brady unpacks the controversy further. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
In the Brady UK correspondence with us.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Now, Hey Inda, Hey Heather, good to speak to you
again Ininda.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
It's good to check you. I see that Kop has
been cleared of murder.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Yes, this was a very significant prosecution, but it ended
with Sergeant Martin Blake being acquitted, cleared of murder after
just three hours and twenty minutes of jury deliberations, unanimously cleared.
Now his charge of murder goes back to September two
years ago. He was on duty Sergeant Martin Blake and

(00:29):
other officers and they tried to stop a high powered
Audi vehicle in Stretham in South London, which had been
linked to a non fatal shooting the night before. So
the police obviously felt whoever was in this vehicle may
well have had information relating to a shooting the night before,
so they were very wary of the vehicle. They perform

(00:50):
what they call a hard stop, you've seen it on TV.
They had the vehicle boxed in, but the guy behind
the wheel, who turned out to be a man called
Chris Caba, aged twenty four, he tried to ram his
way out of the hard stop. Now, there was numerous
officers on the ground and at this point Sergeant Martin
Blake approached the vehicle and fired one single round in

(01:11):
through the windscreen at the driver and had struck Chris
Cabba in the forehead and he died shortly afterwards in hospital,
and there followed a murder charge against the officer. Now
serving police officers were so angry at this murder charge
being brought given what they felt was the level of
danger faced by their colleagues, they started handing back in

(01:32):
their firearms and refusing to carry firearms. So we've had
the court case, the jury came back and Sergeant Martin
Blake has been found not guilty.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
And now the boss of the MIT basically says, if
we carry on this way prosecuting cops trying to do
their jobs, it will crush the spirits and they won't
be able to do their jobs. Has he got a point?

Speaker 2 (01:52):
I think he has. Look I speak as the son
of a police officer and my father carried a firearm
as well in Ireland in the eighties and nineties. I
think they're extremely well trained people, psychologically, very very balanced,
calm people. They are not rash individuals, and I think
it's a very very difficult job being a firearms cup

(02:14):
because you're taking a decision in a nano second, because
they didn't know if this guy was going to drive
over other officers. That was what the fear was amongst
the cups. But I just think back to my father's career,
thirty years in the police in Ireland where there was
an active terrorist organization, and my father said something to

(02:34):
me recently, he's long retired. He said, I never fired
a single round while on duty. Thank god. That was
his take. All that training, think of all the exercises,
all the training, all the target practice. Not one round
dispensed while on duty, and he's The last words he
said were thank god.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Yeah, fair enough. Hey see, you've got a whole bunch
of bed. He's gonna get laid out of jail today.
How the public feeling about this?

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Not great? I would say that's another eleven hundred prisoners
coming out early today. The only people who can't qualify
for this early release scheme now are murderers, sex offenders
and terrorists. Everyone else. It's basically over to you to
get out of prison today. Eleven hundred. Now, the problem
we have is this is just buying more time. We've

(03:22):
done this six weeks ago. The prison population is going
up by one hundred and fifty inmates per week, so
ker Stammer and his government have effectively bought themselves another
seven weeks. What we need to do is have a
very serious discussion here about sentencing and either we put
shorter sentences on crime or we build more prisons. And

(03:44):
this is successive governments have had this issue. But the
Starmer will say that he's inherited an absolute mess of
a prison system and until he can get the budget
over the line in ten days time and get some
money into it, this is what needs to happen.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
What about more diva ind.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yes, So this is a shocker. Moldova have had two
elections on the same day, an EU joining referendum which
they narrowly scraped over the line in favor of yes
by about half a percent, and then there was a
presidential election which now goes to a runoff. But the
big story doing the rounds in Europe is that Russia
spent twenty two million dollars trying to buy votes and

(04:25):
this was not even hidden. This was basically money dropping
in people's bank accounts to go and vote for pro
Russian candidates and vote against joining the European Union. So
it just goes to show you that this level of
bribery and corruption and trying to utterly corrupt the democratic
process alive and well in Eastern Europe.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
Jesus is, isn't it? Hey? Inda, Thanks has always appreciated
into Brady UK correspondenting.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
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