Police 'fear' being named in shooting inquest
BBCA police force has claimed criminals could "seek to take retribution" if firearms officers are named in the inquest of a man who was fatally shot.
Surrey Police has applied for nine armed officers involved in the fatal shooting of Joel Stenning in 2024 to remain anonymous during his inquest, which is due to be heard next year.
Ch Supt Justin Burtenshaw told Surrey Coroner's Court earlier that naming the officers could put them and their families at risk from organised crime groups.
Family of Stenning and media organisations, including the BBC, opposed the application, which senior coroner Richard Travers said he would take "a couple of weeks" to rule on.
Stenning, 29, was shot in the early hours of 11 August, 2024, at an address on Nursery Road in Knaphill, Surrey.
The roofer died four days later in a London hospital with a provisional cause of death recorded as complications from a gunshot wound to the abdomen.
Burtenshaw told the court that "if someone gets named it cannot be undone" and officers had faced threats and harassment in other cases elsewhere in the UK.
He said "anxiety about being named" would "take away some of their ability to give their best evidence".
"It's the fear of them being that headline, the impact on their families, the impact on their children," he said.
Burtenshaw said there were no examples of threats to Surrey firearms officers "because we work so hard to protect their anonymity".
Surrey Police argued naming the officers could prevent them going on to work specialist roles in anti-terrorism operations.
Paul Clark, a lawyer for Stenning's family, told the court there was no evidence of any threat from his relatives or associates.
He said it would set "an entirely new precedent" to give anonymity across the board to firearms officers "without assessment of conditions of the case".
Giving evidence after a fatal shooting "is part of the job", he said.
The inquest is scheduled to be heard over four weeks in 2027, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
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