Police marksmen 'may put down guns'

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One watchdog wants to end the practice of allowing police marksmen to work together on statements prepared in the hours after a shooting.

But the Police Federation said any change to established procedures could leave armed officers "vulnerable" and make it harder to find out what happened.

Jan Berry, chairman of the Police Federation, said any change would leave a "question mark" over firearms operations.

Speaking as the annual Police Federation conference gets under way in Bournemouth, she said officers would then have to consider whether to continue carrying weapons.

Mrs Berry said: "If the guidance was to change, we would deal with that judicially in the first instance because it is against the legal rules that are currently in place.

"While that was going on we would have to advise officers that there is a question mark about this and they would need to consider whether they carried on voluntarily carrying firearms.

"Because officers have got to look after their own interests. Yes, they want to protect the public, but they do not want to make themselves any more vulnerable than they were in the first instance.

"This is about a search for the truth. It is to establish what took place. It is not about people concocting stories to protect other people."

The practice of allowing firearms officers to write up their notes together first came into the spotlight after the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes. A report into the shooting at Stockwell Tube station published last November revealed the officers wrote their statements 36 hours later after receiving legal advice.