New rules after city shootings

FIREARMS licensing officers could have to be accredicted and assessed annually, in the wake of the Keyham shootings in Plymouth last year which cost five innocent lives.

Andy Marsh, chief executive at the College of Policing, told a Home Affairs Committee meeting of the plan to step up the training and assessment of the officers who make decisions about an individual’s fitness to have a shotgun or a rifle. Giving evidence on policing priorities to MPs, Mr Marsh said: “One of the areas that we are looking at now, with Home Office partners, is whether, following the tragic shooting in Plymouth, firearms licensing officers should be annually accredited and assessed by the College of Policing.”

The British Assocation for Shooting and Conservation, which has campaigned for many years for a recognised training standard for staff involved in firearms licensing and accreditation, welcomed the move.

Bill Harriman, BASC’s director of firearms, said: “An annual accreditation and assessment process would be one way to achieve our objective of a level playing field across the 43 police forces in England and Wales.”

Devon and Cornwall Police faced an Independent Police Complaints Commission inquiry into the events leading up to the Keyham shooting in which Jake Davison, 22, shot and killed five people with a pump action shotgun before turning the gun on himself in August 2021. The full inquest into the tragedy and the report from the IPCC is expected in January 2023.