Two police officers who killed a man they thought was Irish and armed will not face disciplinary action, Britain's police complaints watchdog said today.
Harry Stanley (46), a painter and decorator, was shot twice in the 1999 shooting as he walked home from a London pub after he allegedly
pointed a plastic bag containing a table leg at the two officers.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said it had decided that Chief Inspector Neil Sharman and Police Constable Kevin Fagan should not face further disciplinary action.
However, it said it would ask the Association of Chief Police Officers to change the way officers write up their accounts of fatal incidents, following allegations Sharman and Fagan had falsified their evidence.
Today's ruling follows a decision by the Crown Prosecution Service last October not to press charges against the two officers.
The CPS said the evidence - two bullet holes to the top left shoulder of the jacket that Stanley was wearing - appeared to indicate that he may have been shot as he began to turn towards the officers, in contradiction to their statements.
Surrey Police had arrested the two Metropolitan Police officers in June last year after new forensic evidence was discovered during a review of the case.
But the CPS decided there was insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction.
An inquest jury had returned a verdict of unlawful killing in the case in October 2004.
Daniel Machover, solicitor for Stanley 's family, told BBC radio the IPCC decision was a "bitterly disappointing outcome."
"The family is left with a sense that they haven't had justice from this process and that they want there to be real changes that come out of this," he said.
PA