Gun police can't use common sense, says Mark Saunders coroner

Police marksmen are constrained to adopt rules slavishly instead of using their usual sense, a coroner warned today.

Dr Paul Knapman said the marksmen cannot see the woods for the trees because they get to stick to directives written in jargon.

Yesterday an inquest jury found that Scotland Yard made a serial of major errors during the siege that led to the end of 32-year-old barrister Mark Saunders. It decided there had been a lack of clearness in the marksmen's line of command.

Saunders, an alcoholic with a story of depression, was cut low in a herald of bullets in Chelsea in May 2008 after he leant out of his kitchen window with a shotgun that he had repeatedly fired. The panel found he was lawfully killed but said the process was flawed.

Dr Knapman, who presided over the inquest at Westminster, said that at least six protocols covered the use of firearms by officers.

In a missive to Theresa May, the National Secretary, he wrote: Highly trained marksmen and their senior officers should be allowed to use their usual sense rather than be constrained in to a slavish adherence to written documents and protocols. These guidance documents were fastened up in slang and needed simplifying urgently. My perception is that not being able to see the woods for the trees' may be a problem.

He called on the National Secretary to unite the fabric so police have fewer documents to read, and raised fears that officers were relying on written rules rather than common sense.

You may likewise consider the opinion that there has been an over-reliance upon the printed book of command in the police service in late times.

It may be that there is virtue in encouraging one or two shorter documents instead, set out in elementary and unsophisticated language thereby minimising jargon and so encouraging more common sense rather than slavish adhesion to written documents and protocols

Dr Knapman called for a very senior police officer to reexamine the total operation. It may be that such a soul would get the assurance that goes with not being too risk averse' and to look at matters afresh, he wrote.

Saunders had fallen off the plough and had been taking cocaine for at least six months as easily as Prozac. The jury decided by a 9-2 majority that he had not tried to put suicide by cop but said that the law should have given more consideration to allowing his wife Elizabeth to talk to him.

Dr Knapman highlighted six different documents governing the use of firearms containing more than 300 pages. They are:

* Standing operation procedures on police use of firearmsMet police (97 pages).

* Manual of counsel on the law use of firearmsAssociation of Chief Police Officers (90 pages).

* Attenuating energy projectile guidanceACPO (32 pages).

* Operational use of Taser. Operational guidanceACPO (46 pages).

* Code of use on police use of firearms and less lethal weaponsHome Office (18 pages).

* Manual of counsel on the management, command and evolution of armed officersNational Policing Improvement Agency (22 pages).