AN UNARMED black man who was shot dead by a Metropolitan Police officer was “lawfully killed,” an inquiry into his death concluded today.

Jermaine Baker, 28, a father of two from Tottenham, north London, was killed during an attempt to free a prisoner from a police vehicle near Wood Green Crown Court on December 11 2015. 

A  specialist counterterrorism firearms officer, referred to only as W80, shot Mr Baker dead he sat in the front seat of an Audi car.

The officer told the inquiry that he believed Mr Baker had been reaching for a firearm. 

But the probe found that neither Mr Baker nor the other two men in the car were holding a gun when he was shot. A replica Uzi machine gun was retrieved from the back seat. 

In its final report, published today, the inquiry concluded that the killing was lawful, but it identified a “catalogue of failures,” in the police operation to foil the attempt, which must act as a “loud wake-up call to the newly appointed commissioner,” it added. 

In his key finding, inquiry chair Clement Goldstone said: “I have concluded that W80 shot Mr Baker because he honestly believed that Mr Baker posed a lethal threat and that it was reasonably necessary for him to shoot in order to defend himself.

“As a result, I have concluded that Mr Baker was lawfully killed.”

He also concluded that race did not play any part in Baker’s death. 

Responding to the findings, Mr Baker’s mother Margaret Smith said the family deserved more after seven and a half years of waiting for answers and justice. 

“Jermaine was dead before he got in that car,” she said. “His life was taken for no good reason. As I have always said, he should have gone to prison like the rest of the men in the car.

“I therefore cannot agree with the judge’s conclusions that Jermaine did not die as a result of these failures.

“That is a conclusion that I can not understand and the judge has not explained why he has drawn that conclusion.”

The 28-year-old and his associates had planned to intercept the transport of Izzet Eren, a member of the Tottenham Turks gang, on route to a sentencing hearing at the court. 

The Audi he was in had been bugged and, shortly before 9am, armed officers surrounded the vehicle and he was shot. One of the major failings identified by the inquiry was that the listening device had not been properly installed in the car.

Earlier that day, senior officer Detective Chief Inspector Neil Williams, who was leading the police operation, had received intelligence that the group had only been able to source a replica gun. 

However ,this information was not passed on to the firearm officers involved in the operation. 

They were found to have approached the vehicle without knowing how many people were inside and with a working strategy that “increased rather than minimised risk,” the inquiry said. 

The probe was also highly critical of the planning of the operation, including failures by officers to make notes or even notice that intelligence reports were labelled with the wrong operational name. 

This was indicative of “an arrogant, dismissive attitude towards formality and a failure to appreciate the importance of accountability,” the report said. 

The  officers’ evidence to the inquiry revealed a determination, “bordering at times on obsessive,” to achieve the “delusional” aim of ridding the streets of north London of firearms, Mr Goldstone added. 

This meant the officers involved were unable to appreciate their “flawed approach” to the operation, he said. 

State-related deaths charity Inquest, which has been supporting the family, said it was difficult to understand how such “catastrophic failings” were not determined by the judge to have contributed to Mr Baker’s death. 

Inquest head of casework Anita Sharma added: “We must see accountability for those involved in Jermaine’s death to send a message to police leadership and officers that they are not above the law. 

“The failure to hold police to account breeds impunity, which ultimately allows deaths and harms to continue.”