London Riots: Public misled on death that led to riots

The shooting of the 29-year-old in Tottenham, north London, last Thursday sparked riots that then spread to other English cities.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said yesterday it may have "inadvertently" led journalists to believe Mr Duggan had fired at officers.

The news came as Prime Minister David Cameron insisted police and politicians had worked together to deal with the riots, after senior officers hit back at criticisms at the lack of police initially deployed to tackle them.

It was initially reported that Mr Duggan shot at police, but ballistic tests later found a bullet that had lodged in one officer's radio was police issue.

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The IPCC said: "Analysis of media coverage and queries raised on Twitter have alerted us to the possibility that we may have inadvertently given misleading information to journalists when responding to very early media queries following the shooting of Mark Duggan by Metropolitan Police Service officers on the evening of 4 August.

"The IPCC's first statement, issued at 10:49pm on 4 August, makes no reference to shots fired at police and our subsequent statements have set out the sequence of events based on the emerging evidence.

"However, having reviewed the information the IPCC received and gave out during the very early hours of the unfolding incident, before any documentation had been received, it seems possible that we may have verbally led journalists to believe that shots were exchanged, as this was consistent with early information we received that an officer had been shot.

"Any reference to an exchange of shots was not correct and did not feature in any of our formal statements, although an officer was taken to hospital after the incident."Mr Duggan was a passenger in a minicab which was apparently stopped by police near Tottenham Hale Tube station.

A non-police issue handgun, converted from a blank-firing pistol to shoot live rounds, was recovered near the scene.

The bullet lodged in the police radio was a police-issue bullet consistent with being fired from a Metropolitan Police Heckler & Koch MP5, the IPCC said.

An inquest into Mr Duggan's death, which opened at North London Coroner's Court in High Barnet on Tuesday, heard the father of four died from a single gunshot wound to the chest.

On a visit to riot-hit Salford yesterday, Mr Cameron tried to calm a row over the police response to the unrest.

Senior police officers, angered by criticism from politicians, stressed it was their decision to change tactics and increase officer numbers that restored calm to the streets.

Mr Cameron said: "Clearly there was a need for more (police] on the street, there was a need to change tactics.

And I think it's right that police took those decisions and changed those tactics, and increased the number of police officers.

"Where I think the government and the police worked well together was through the Cobra emergency planning committee … it helps the police by showing that there was political backing for the changes they wanted to make."

Scotland Yard faced criticism over its initial handing of the rioting.

Mr Cameron told the Commons on Thursday that "far too few" officers were deployed when the trouble first started, and said officers initially treated the violence "too much as a public order issue" rather than as criminality.

Metropolitan Police Acting Commissioner Tim Godwin said yesterday criticism of the policing operation was being made by people "who weren't there", in an apparent dig at senior figures, including the Prime Minister and Home Secretary Theresa May, who were on holiday when the trouble started.Mr Godwin said: "We were able to nip this in the bud after a few days. I think the issue around the numbers, the issue around the tactics - they are all police decisions and they are all made by my police commanders and myself."

Referring to political intervention, Sir Hugh Orde, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, said: "Let's be very clear on one thing - a vital distinction between police and politics remains. The police service will make the tactical decisions and quite rightly and robustly we should and must be held to account. If not, the system fails."

Mr Cameron insisted he had not questioned the bravery of the officers who faced down the rioters. "They were brave on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. They are brave every day of every year when they put their lives on the line for us. I have huge respect for our police," he said.

"But clearly we needed to act this week to get control of the streets, to get them back for the law-abiding. The police did that, they did change their tactics, they did increase police numbers, that was the right thing to do."

Former New York Police Commissioner William Bratton said he was in talks with the UK government to become an adviser on calming the violence after an invitation from Mr Cameron.