Police opened fire 4 times in a year in England and Wales

Police opened fire four times in a year, killing two people in England and Wales, new figures show.

A Home Office report said there were four incidents where “police firearms were intentionally discharged” in the year to March.

The figure is the lowest number since 2014, and makes up 0.02 per cent of all operations involving armed police.

In June 2021, police shot dead 24-year-old Kelvin Igweani after he barricaded himself in a room with a two-year-old child at his home in Milton Keynes.

When officers arrived, they found the dead body of a neighbour, who Mr Igweani had bludgeoned to death when he tried to help the child.

Police initially Tasered the man but it had no visible effect and called out to him to let the child out, before breaking into the room and opening fire. The child was found with head injuries inflicted by Mr Igweani but survived after undergoing surgery.

The second fatal shooting was in Kensington, London, in December, when police shot a suspected armed robber as he travelled in a taxi. A non-police issue gun was found at the scene.

Both fatal shootings are subject to ongoing inquest proceedings and investigations by the Independent Office for Police Conduct.

Details of the other two incidents were not provided in the Home Office report.

Police are not routinely armed in England and Wales and must undergo specialist training and extra vetting checks.

The number of operationally deployable firearms officers in England and Wales has fallen since 2019, the figures show, but remains higher than the toal when a government uplift began in 2016.