London riots: Duggan’s gun supplied by drug dealer

A DRUG dealer has been convicted of supplying a gun to Mark Duggan, whose fatal shooting by police just minutes later sparked the 2011 summer riots.

Kevin Hutchinson-Foster was found guilty yesterday of giving Mr Duggan the gun just 15 minutes before he was shot dead on 4 August, 2011.

The 29-year-old’s death in Tottenham sparked riots that swept across London and other English towns and cities.

Hutchinson-Foster, 30, who is already in prison for drugs offences and was on licence at the time he gave Mr Duggan the gun, had already pleaded guilty to using the same gun to threaten people in a barber’s shop just six days before, as well as using it to “pistol whip” a barber.

Hutchinson-Foster had pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

He denied selling or transferring a prohibited firearm to Mr Duggan between 28 July and 5 August 2011, and a jury failed to reach a verdict in an original trial, prompting a retrial at the Old Bailey which led to his conviction.

He will be sentenced for all three charges on 26 February.

The court heard that Mr Duggan, who was under police surveillance that day and the day before, had gone in a minicab to Leyton, east London, where he collected the BBM Bruni Model 92 handgun in a shoebox from Hutchinson-Foster, before continuing to Tottenham.

The cab was pulled over by armed police in four unmarked cars in a “hard stop”, and as Mr Duggan got out clutching the gun, he was shot by CO19 officers.

In the so-far only public accounts of what happened, police officers told Hutchinson-Foster’s trial about how they opened fire on Mr Duggan.

Known only as V53, the man who shot him said he was sure Mr Duggan was holding a handgun, while other officers also claimed Mr Duggan was hiding something in his hand and then raised what appeared to be a gun as he got out of the cab.

Hutchinson-Foster admitted using the gun to beat Peter Osadebay at a salon in Dalston, east London, on 29 July, 2011, which he said explained why his DNA was found on it when it was retrieved on 4 August.

He said he had collected the firearm on 29 July and returned it the same day so could not have passed it to Mr Duggan.

The gun was found five metres from Mr Duggan’s body on a grass verge. The shoebox, found in the minicab, had both his and Hutchinson-Foster’s fingerprints on it, while mobile phone evidence showed they were in contact with each other in the run up to the shooting.

Chief superintendent Dean Haydon said: “The trial has primarily been about an illegal firearm and I welcome the verdict.”