Shooting of Stephen Waldorf
Stephen Waldorf was shot and seriously injured by police officers in London on 14 January 1983 after they mistook him for David Martin, an escaped criminal.
The shooting caused a public outcry and led to a series of reforms to the training and authorisation of armed police officers in the United Kingdom.
When the car stopped in traffic, Detective Constable Finch—the only officer present who had met Martin—was sent forward on foot to confirm the passenger's identity.
The Dear Report, published in November 1983, recommended psychological assessment and increased training of armed officers.
Several academics and commentators believed these reforms exemplified an event-driven approach to policymaking and that the British police lacked a coherent strategy for developing firearms policy.
The Met also had a dedicated Firearms Unit (known by the designation D11)—officers who specialised in armed operations and had access to heavier weapons—which could be called upon for complex or protracted incidents.
[1][2] The police officers who shot Waldorf were hunting David Martin, an escaped cross-dressing criminal who was considered to be extremely dangerous.
When confronted by a police officer (who initially thought he was talking to a woman), a struggle ensued and Martin produced a gun.
[6][7] Over the following three months, Martin made multiple appearances at Marlborough Street Magistrates Court, charged with attempted murder and other offences.
On 24 December, while waiting for his hearing, Martin escaped his cell and fled across the roof of the court building, prompting a large manhunt which was run by a dedicated task force.
[5][8][9] The task force again followed Martin's girlfriend, with the help of C11 (a unit of specialist surveillance officers), hoping she would lead them to him.
If they encountered Martin, the plan was to follow him to a premises and await the arrival of D11, though several detectives and surveillance officers were armed in case of a confrontation in the open.
[10] On the evening of 14 January 1983, police observed Martin's girlfriend get into a friend's car, which they covertly followed through West London.
Finch, meanwhile, had made his way round to the driver's side, where he leaned into the car, aimed his revolver between Waldorf's eyes and said, "OK, cocksucker," before pulling the trigger, but the gun did not fire.
Waldorf suffered five bullet wounds—which damaged his abdomen and liver—as well as a fractured skull and injuries to one hand caused by the pistol whipping.
Dickens and his team conducted initial interviews with all the officers involved in the shooting within hours and then again the following day.
The Home Secretary, William Whitelaw, promised that the CIB report would be reviewed by the independent Police Complaints Board (PCB) and passed to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to consider whether criminal charges should be brought against the officers.
In exchange for leniency, she agreed to help the police recapture Martin and set up a date with him at a restaurant in Hampstead on 28 January 1983.
[33] Martin was charged with 14 offences, including the attempted murder of a police officer and multiple counts of robbery and burglary.
The Police Federation called it "trial by television" and felt that it would prejudice potential disciplinary proceedings against the officers.
An episode of the BBC's flagship current affairs programme Panorama, titled "Lethal Force" and featuring an interview with Waldorf, was broadcast in December 2001.
[37] The Metropolitan Police commissioner's annual report for 1983 acknowledged that "professionalism, declared policy, and training failed" to prevent the incident.
[17][39][40] With regards to training, the guidelines stated: Every officer to whom a weapon is issued must be strictly warned that it is to be used only as a last resort where conventional methods have been tried and failed, or must [...] be unlikely to succeed if tried.
[40][41][42] The Metropolitan Police implemented the first two recommendations but the third was indefinitely postponed because of budgetary concerns, partly because the Met was in the middle of a major restructuring.
[41][43] The increased training focused in particular on Section 3 of the Criminal Law Act 1967, which codified the use of reasonable force in self-defence or to prevent the commission of a crime.
[46] They believed that the shooting, particularly the way that other officers opened fire after hearing the initial shots, suggested "a 'gung-ho' attitude to firearms discharge falling well short of professionalism",[47] a view shared by Maurice Punch, another academic specialising in policing.
Punch concluded that the "unprofessional, almost chaotic" nature of the incident raised "critical questions" about the command and control of the operation.
[50] In 1986, the Home Office established another working group to build on the Dear Report, following two more mistaken police shootings—those of Cherry Groce, which sparked the 1985 Brixton riot, and John Shorthouse, a five-year-old boy accidentally shot dead in Birmingham.
[54][55][56] In a 2023 book chapter, Squires argued that the effects of Waldorf's shooting continued to be felt and that the lessons from it and other incidents remained relevant.
