The firearms officer Martyn Blake was cleared of murdering Chris Kaba this week. Kaba was a serious wrong ‘un: a violent gangland enforcer with a rap sheet as long as your arm going back to the age of 13. During the trial this information was kept under wraps, on the basis that Kaba’s past was irrelevant to Blake’s guilt or innocence and speculation about it potentially prejudicial to the Crown’s case. After the acquittal, however, all this is rightly in the open.
What is worrying, however, is that our ability to know the full facts even now was a fairly close-run thing. Immediately after the trial Chris Kaba’s family tried hard to keep the matter legally secret. Why? They were, they said, worried that any speculation might prejudice a coroner’s jury and thereby be a contempt of court.
The idea that a coroner’s court needs the same kind of protection as a criminal trial holds remarkably little water
The judge, commendably, came down in favour of allowing publication.
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