AC-2024-LON-003241 - [2025] EWHC 3014 (Admin)

Mr Stanbury took me to a limited number of passages in the evidence from the Inquest, for the purposes of challenging the Coroner’s assessment of the evidence, and to suggest that the Coroner had failed to distinguish between the proper provinces of the coroner and the jury. In particular, he made granular criticisms of the Coroner’s treatment in the course of the Ruling of two important pieces of evidence.

First, the “off the record” conversation between Mark Williams and Roberto Florio after Mark Williams’ “interview under caution” had ended. A near contemporaneous note of that conversation stated:

“Paul ASBURY, [and others] run the drugs supply round this area. They are earning lots of money from it. Lee MURRAY is going away from it. He does more fighting now and is into property developing, as is Asbury.

Asbury has an Uzi machine pistol. I don’t know where he keeps it. Obviously they are keeping it away from me, but I know he has this weapon and ammunition for it. He has a shotgun as well. I haven’t seen these weapons.

I’m at war with gypsies, I’m having it with [a person he names] and them lot. These people all think they are gangsters. They don’t know who they’re dealing with. I run with Andy Wanogho (Sparks). He is on the run for murder. That’s why I wear a bullet−proof vest the whole time. I’ve got a [visiting order] for Dwayne Freeman who is doing a life sentence for a shooting in the West End. We will take over the drugs market here. You won’t get anywhere with this robbery. Asbury hasn’t been car−jacked he is talking crap. I have never done any knifepoint robbery. If I was to rob him I’d do it proper. Asbury has spoken to me on the telephone. I said I want £10,000 for the car for trying to knock my girl. He told me to forget the car and that I would never live to collect the money.”

I should briefly refer to submissions by Mr Gibbs KC that the accuracy and truthfulness of Mark Williams’ statements, with specific reference to the Uzi machine pistol, was seriously challenged by evidence before the Inquest. That reflects the fact that the Coroner will have heard evidence from a number of sources when reaching her assessment of evidential sufficiency, but it is not practical for the court on a permission application to seek to replicate that process, nor would it be appropriate.

For present purposes, it is sufficient to record the Coroner’s treatment of this issue:

“[31(xix)] Asbury was a known thief, robber and burglar with no convictions for violence. DC Horner knew him for 10 years and did not consider him any risk to either Sabina or Williams. Horner knew him as an acquisitive offender and not violent or capable of murder. He was thought to be involved in drugs. The evidence I heard was that DS Florio considered him more “small time” that Williams. Mark Williams himself was scathing about Asbury and called him a “pussy”. Williams was a dangerous and violent career criminal and well aware of his status as such. He told the police that he intended to take over the drug dealing market in Asbury’s area. Williams said the bullet proof vest was being worn because of threats from others and he had been wearing it for three months. These others were significant criminals with whom he had disputes. He named them in the off the record account. The jury has a document prepared after the shooting by the officers containing the details of this conversation.

[31(xx)] The police officers said that Williams gave the clear impression that he was not afraid of Asbury and that in fact he considered Asbury should be afraid of him in saying “they don’t know who they are dealing with”. The fact that Williams seemed to be able to persuade Asbury to drop the charges whilst in the police station was capable of signifying to the police that he had more criminal power. Asbury had on one view “grassed” Williams to the police. The police could therefore have considered MW to be the aggrieved party.

[31(xxi)] It is clear from the off the record conversation that MW described a risk to his life that came from other people, not PA. This was the risk he seemed most concerned with and the reason he gave for wearing a bullet proof vest.

[39] On the intelligence gisted to the inquest and available at the time, Asbury had not committed violent crimes with guns or weapons apart from when he was 13. He had been an acquisitive criminal since the age of 11 and was known to DC Horner as such. The off the record conversation between Williams and the two police officers did not raise a risk of a murderous attack outside the police station that night by Asbury. In fact both officers said that Williams was more concerned about serious threats from other criminals. He said that he was “at war with the gypsies”, who include PA and his associates. This was a war over drugs supply. He was clearly not afraid of this group. He said in fact that he intended to take over PA’s drug dealing patch and that PA was a “pussy”. Sabina was not mentioned in the off record briefing.

[40] MW believed that the threat to him came from the enemies of W, who might attack him in revenge for a murder committed by W previously. He said this was why he was wearing the bullet proof vest which he had been wearing for 3 months.”

Second, evidence on the issue of whether Sabina Rivzi was offered a lift by the Police from the police station. As to this:

I am not persuaded that there is any substantive difference between these two expressions, still less that it is arguable that the Coroner was “muddled” on a fair reading of the Ruling. The words “seems to have extended to Sabina” quoted the submissions CTI had made in the terms CTI had adopted. Mr Stanbury’s complaint at the hearing focussed on the Coroner’s account of the reasons why the lift had been offered.

It is clear from my review of their written and oral closing submissions that, as would be expected, all of the points made by Mr Stanbury were made by the family’s counsel team at the Inquest (and, if I may be permitted to observe, forcefully so) and that the issue of a lift was explored extensively in the evidence. It is apparent from that same review that a large number of points were made by counsel for the Police and the two officers in support of their position (Mr Gibbs KC’s submissions attempting a similar “highlights” package from their perspective, until discouraged by the court). It is also clear that the Coroner’s assessment of the state of evidence on the issue of the lift (including on the fact of its non-acceptance) was one chain in a lengthy list of reasons the Coroner gave for her evidential assessment.

Mr Stanbury’s island-hopping expedition in a sea of extensive evidence did not persuade me that it was arguable that this was one of the very rare cases in which an experienced coroner’s assessment of the effect of evidence was unreasonable in the Wednesbury sense. It is, with respect, simply not arguable that no reasonable tribunal, directing itself properly, could have reached the conclusions to which the Coroner came. Nor am I persuaded that it is arguable that the Coroner was not at all times fully alive to the differing roles of coroner and jury, or that she trespassed into the Jury’s realm.