A misconduct hearing for a Metropolitan Police firearms officer who fatally shot a man during a foiled prison break has been thrown out.
The officer, known only as W80, shot Jermaine Baker as police stopped a plot to snatch two prisoners from a van near Wood Green Crown Court in December 2015.
The Metropolitan Police misconduct hearing at Palestra House was discontinued on Wednesday.
Chairman of the hearing panel Chris McKay said the “decision of the panel is that we find there is no case for W80 to answer in these proceedings and accordingly the case against W80 is dismissed. The full reasons will follow as the rules provide in the next five working days.”
It comes after the panel retired on Tuesday to consider submissions of no case to answer made on behalf of officer W80 by Duncan Penny KC.
Mr McKay said it had been a “complex case” with more than 3,000 pages of documents placed before the panel.
He added that it was “important” for W80 and the family of Mr Baker to know the outcome as soon as possible.
Father-of-two Mr Baker, from Tottenham, north London, was shot at close range by counter-terrorism specialist firearms officer W80, who thought he was reaching for a gun.
Mr Baker, who was sitting in the front passenger seat of a stolen Audi A6, was unarmed, and an imitation firearm was later found in the back of the Audi, the misconduct hearing previously heard.
The misconduct proceedings involving W80 began last week after years of legal battles over the case, in which he is accused of breaching professional standards over the use of force.
W80 was a counter-terrorism firearms officer in the “highest tier” of armed officers in the country and had been trained to carry a gun since 1998.
The discontinued misconduct hearing came nearly 10 years after Mr Baker died, after years of legal battles around the case.
Prosecutors said in 2017 that there was insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges over the shooting, but a police watchdog directed that the officer should face misconduct proceedings.
This sparked a lengthy legal battle between watchdog the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) and the officer, who was supported by the Met.
In 2023, the Supreme Court found in the IOPC’s favour, meaning the misconduct hearing would go ahead.
There was also a public inquiry into Mr Baker’s death, that concluded in 2022 that he had been lawfully killed.
