© Rex FeaturesMark Duggan.
The jury rushed out of court to a secure room as the friends and family of the dead 29-year-old heard the verdict, which was greeted angrily by relatives and supporters in north London.
On Wednesday night speaking outside Tottenham police station, Pam Duggan, Mark's mother, said she did not accept the verdict. "They [the police] know that they have killed my son."
The lawful killing verdict was a surprise to some even on the police side, and more so as before announcing the decision, the jury had announced by an eight-to-two majority that they were sure Duggan did not have a gun in his hand when shot.
That had seemed to be the issue at the heart of the inquest.
The jury delivered a narrative verdict, answering a series of questions. It had appeared that the six days of deliberations were going to produce a disaster for the Metropolitan police when the jury found law enforcement had not done enough to gather and react to intelligence Duggan may be seeking to acquire a gun.
Instead the jury announced that by an eight-to-two majority they believed the firearms officer had acted lawfully in gunning Duggan down.
The officer, known as V53, testified he was sure he had seen a gun in Duggan's right hand and believed the suspect was preparing to use it. As the verdict was announced, Pam Duggan broke down in court and his brother shouted swearwords at the jury.
© Mark Duggan Inquest/PA The scene after Mark Duggan was shot and killed by police in Tottenham, north London in August 2011
Shortly afterwards the Duggan family described the decision as perverse, maintained that he had been executed said they were considering a court challenge to the verdict. In emotional scenes outside the courtroom, Carole Duggan, Mark's aunt, gave an impassioned speech."No justice, no peace," she said.
The police tried to make a statement outside the Royal Courts of Justice but Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley was shouted down with cries of "scum" and "murderers". Some people had to be held back by police from physically confronting the police chief in charge of armed officers.
Rowley offered to meet the Duggan family and said: "It is significant, then, that a jury of Londoners, who have seen and heard all the evidence, have today concluded that not only was the operation to stop Mark Duggan in the taxi conducted in a way which minimised to the greatest extent possible recourse to lethal force, but that Mark Duggan had a gun, and also that our officer had an honest and reasonable belief that Mark Duggan still had the gun when he shot him."
On Wednesday night the Metropolitan police formed contingency plans to try to stop disorder in the capital amid signs that tensions in the north London suburb were high. In the early evening, the Duggan family gathered outside Tottenham police station, where they spoke to police officers and the media, in tense scenes with echoes of the lead-up to the first of the August 2011 riots, which also began with a Duggan family protest outside the same police station.
Outside the station, Pam Duggan said she had no desire to speak to the police, who had said they wanted to discuss the verdict. "What for? Why do they want to speak to me. They know that they have killed my son," she told Channel 4 News.
She said that she would not accept the verdict. "I'm going to fight this for as long as I live. I know he was not capable of doing the things that they are saying. Anyone that has got a child, take care of them. Lock up your children. They are already harassing my younger son now," she said.
Carole Duggan hit out at a Daily Mail reporter over the paper's coverage of her nephew's death.
© Andy Rain/EPA Mark Duggan's family make a statement outside the High Court in London after an inquest jury found that he was 'lawfully killed' by police. Mark Duggan was shot dead by police in Tottenham in 2011. Sensitive files on Mark Duggan and others have gone missing!
Met chiefs also believe the system for dealing with police shootings has not just outlived its usefulness but may also undermine public confidence in officers' truthfulness. Last night, Bernard Hogan- Howe, the Met's commissioner, struck a somewhat conciliatory tone saying Duggan's shooting had led to a significant reduction in trust between London's black communities and police.
He welcomed the lawful killing verdict, but recognised the lingering anger and added: " I know that we have much work to do with black Londoners to build trust and confidence in the Metropolitan police." The commissioner stressed his armed officers's aim is to save lives but recognised the jury's verdict will not end the debate about the Duggan shooting: "We know that the arguments will continue about what happened in this case. So we appeal for a balanced debate about the risks to the public from gun-crime."
Detective superintendent Mark Welton, in charge of what police do after a shooting, told the Guardian that from the commissioner down, there was a view that change was needed: "You can't have a process the cops are confident in and the people of London are not. You are trying to defend something nobody else likes apart from yourself.
"These processes do not support the officers or make them appear truthful witnesses. I'm not surprised the family and the public don't like it, as it is administered by the police."
The shooting led to the worst riots in modern English history starting in Tottenham and spreading across the capital before blighting areas throughout the country.
Duggan was shot after armed officers forced a cab he was travelling in to stop, based on intelligence that he was part of a gang and had collected a gun.
The inquest, which began in September, was told by police that Duggan was shot twice after he brandished a firearm when surrounded by armed officers.
The jury went on to find Duggan had collected a gun, which was not in dispute, minutes before he faced armed police, having travelled to an east London address to collect a shoe box which contained it.
After Duggan was shot, the gun, wrapped in a sock, was found on the other side of a fence three-six metres away from where the fatally injured Duggan fell to the pavement. Neither the gun nor the sock had any DNA or fingerprints from Duggan on it. The jury was asked how the gun got to the place it was found, amid Duggan family claims police had placed it there. By a nine-to-one majority they dismissed a police cover-up, concluding Duggan threw it there.
Eight jury members said Duggan probably did so after his minicab had been forced to stop, and before any armed officers had surrounded him. That contradicted the evidence of another police officer, W42, who had testified that that had not been the case.
Then the jury announced that eight of them were sure Duggan did not have a gun in his hand when officers surrounded him, a finding that had seemed to set the scene for the worst verdict for the Met, before the ethnically diverse jury chose to conclude that Duggan had nevertheless been lawfully killed.
After the verdicts, his brother, Shaun Hall, said: "We came for justice today, we don't feel we are leaving with justice. We've got nothing to hide. We don't feel we have got anything to hide for. We have got nothing to hide, we have done nothing wrong. We will still fight for justice."After the verdicts, Duggan's aunt Carole said: "The majority of the people in this country know that Mark was executed.
"We are going to fight until we have no breath left in our body."
John Tully, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said: "Firearms officers are armed and trained to deal with the most serious threat to our society from criminals. They often have to make split second decisions in order to protect themselves or the public in difficult circumstances. Their decisions are then scrutinised during court processes which look at the situation with the benefit of hindsight."
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