The family of an unarmed man who was fatally shot by police have vowed to continue their fight for answers after the official watchdog dropped its investigation into the operation.
Anthony Grainger, 36, was shot through the chest as he sat in a car in the village of Culcheth, Cheshire, by an armed police officer known as “Q9” in March 2012.
Detectives believed Grainger and two others were planning to hold up a supermarket and had access to firearms on the evening of 3 March 2012.
However, no weapons were found in the red Audi and a public inquiry found Greater Manchester police (GMP) entirely to blame for his death due to serious flaws in its operation.
Grainger’s family have expressed their “great disappointment” after the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) ended its investigation into the senior officers who led the operation due to a failure to obtain “sensitive” material.
Former assistant chief constable Terry Sweeney, former superintendent Mark Granby and a former chief inspector, all now retired from the force, were being investigated for gross misconduct regarding their command and control of the operation.
But an IOPC spokesman said its investigation had been discontinued because “some of the material which may be relevant to the decisions to be made at the conclusion of any investigation, and to provide adequate disclosure to the officers, could not be disclosed”.
The Grainger family said the investigation had been “doomed from the outset” because the IOPC had not been granted access to the crucial material. The family said that while this material remained secret no one could be fully investigated for the “failings and catastrophic errors” that led to the 36-year-old’s death.
They added: “It has been left solely for the family to pursue this and our legal team will be challenging the validity of this undisclosed material in the high court next month.
“We are now nine years on and our legal fight continues to get accountability and answers from GMP as to their failings.”
Gross misconduct allegations against Steve Heywood, a former assistant chief constable, were dismissed in June.
The IOPC said it had also dropped an investigation into a serving officer for failing to inform his superiors that two of the officers involved in the operation had failed a counter-terrorist specialist firearms officer training course.
A third investigation looking at the force’s acquisition of a CS dispersal canister, not approved by the Home Office, which was used during the operation is ongoing, the spokesman said.
