Leaked documents reveal shocking police failures on the night Metropolitan police sergeant Matt Ratana was shot dead by an autistic man.
Louis De Zoysa was carrying a large antique gun in a shoulder holster when officers stopped and searched him in the early hours of Friday 25 September 2020.
The roadside search, which lasted five minutes, found seven home made bullets in a breast pocket but incredibly not the revolver underneath his coat.
In all, five officers attended the incident before De Zoysa was transported to Croydon custody centre where he shot dead Ratana inside a cell while handcuffed behind his back.
The Met documents and a report by the police watchdog reveal that:
the officer who searched De Zoysa was a probationer with a poor training record.
no officer asked De Zoysa if he had a gun.
his jacket was not removed during the search or when his handcuffs were changed from a front to a back position.
De Zoysa was not monitored properly in the van as he contorted his body to get the gun into his hands.
No officer held him by the arm or handcuffs when escorting De Zoysa into the police cell.
De Zoysa, who has hyper-mobility of his joints, was shot in the neck during a struggle with the probationer, which has left him brain damaged and in a wheelchair.
In the chaotic aftermath, the probationer picked up the revolver from the cell floor and disappeared into a room in the custody centre on his own.
He has also ‘misplaced’ the police notebook in which he made several entries about the stop and search.
An investigation by The Upsetter into the police watchdog’s response to the shooting has found that:
The Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) immediately decided that the officers involved in the incident would be treated as witnesses and not investigated for any disciplinary or criminal offences.
The IOPC wanted to exonerate the officers before all the evidence had been obtained.
Key forensic tests were not carried out.
The police failures were kept from the public for three years while trust in the Met and watchdog was collapsing.
The Met had significant influence over what was supposed to be an ‘independent’ IOPC investigation.
The wider conduct of senior IOPC managers who oversaw the Ratana investigation is presently being investigated by an external inquiry.
De Zoysa, 26, is now serving a whole life sentence for the murder of Ratana, 54, who was weeks from retiring from the Met when he was gunned down.
James Young, his brother in New Zealand, has already slammed the force for not detecting the antique Colt Army Special revolver with a 3.5in barrel.
He accused the Met of “covering up” what happened the night his brother was killed.
The New Zealand family are not represented at the inquest into Ratana’s death, which opened yesterday in Croydon, south London and will examine “missed opportunities”, senior coroner Sarah Ormond-Walshe has promised.
In July, a jury at Northampton Crown Court found De Zoysa guilty of murder, rejecting his defence of manslaughter by diminished responsibility due to an “autistic meltdown”.
The former coder for the local tax office had lost several pre-trial hearings arguing his injuries rendered him unfit to stand trial.
The coroner is sitting without a jury at the request of the Met. Just over 50% of Croydon’s population are from black, Asian or other ethnic minorities.
Su Bushby, Sgt Ratana's girlfriend of five years, supported the no jury application. She is represented at the inquest by the same lawyer who sued the Met over the murder of a police officer while on duty at Westminster Palace.
A source said Bushby will consider suing the Met after the inquest. Her legal team was not aware until this month that the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) had completed an unpublished report into the shooting.
The HSE has written to all chief constables about its recommendations on improving training, supervision and monitoring.
An application by De Zoysa to adjourn the inquest pending the outcome of his appeal was rejected by the coroner. He, too, is unrepresented at the inquest after being denied legal aid.
The death of cop is always an opportunity for the ‘police family’ to reinforce the idea of their exceptionalism in the public’s mind.
However, Ratana died as the Met was sliding into an unprecedented crisis of trust, integrity and performance.
The killing took place in between two other shocking stop and search cases during the covid lockdown.
In July 2020, Met officers stopped black athletes Bianca Williams and Ricardo dos Santos causing uproar once again among Londoners and the wider Black Lives Matter movement.
Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick went on radio to give officers her full support and to deny racism played any part.
Then in March 2021, diplomatic protection officer Wayne Couzens kidnapped, raped and murdered Sarah Everard, setting off a wave of protest over police misogyny and the failure to investigate violence against women and girls.
The Met held back from the public that Couzens had used his warrant card and handcuffs to detain Everard as she walked home alone at night.
As public support haemorrhaged, Ratana’s death in September 2020 was something Commissioner Dick could rinse for public sympathy.
Three years on, controlling the narrative over Ratana is a key battleground for her replacement, Sir Mark Rowley, and for the Met’s survival and self-regulation.
Like a domestic abuser beseeching his battered partner, Rowley wants the public to believe his apologies for racist, misogynist and corrupt policing are sincere, to forgive him and accept that this time it really is different, meaningful change will happen if he’s given one last chance.
Meanwhile, the commissioner continues to use Ratana’s death as a reminder to the public of the price his officers pay for keeping them safe, while keeping them in the dark about failings on that night and what it says about the state of the Met.