I can't access your link (all BBC-related sites have been "down" for several hours) - but I'm assuming this is the judicial direction to return an open verdict or lawful killing verdict, as opposed to an unlawful killing verdict.
In my view, this is a sensible and correct direction.
Before anyone takes it upon themself to jump down my throat and inform me that I am in no position to pronounce thusly due (perhaps) to my not having been privy to all the information of which the jury have been availed - may I get in first, and say that I don't care.
The jury will return an open verdict.
The jury ought to return a verdict of lawful killing. Because, plainly, it was a lawful killing.
Once you make it "unlawful" to kill an innocent man who you honestly, reasonably and conscientiously believe to be a threat - you make it potentially "unlawful" to act decisively within the overwhelming public interest, upon all and every occasion.
No police officer can discharge his duty upon the basis that his honestly held 'life-and-death'; 'split-second' decisions are wrong, and less valid than the panoply of hindsight-enriched facts and factoids, gathered together by multitudes of itinerants over acres of foregoing months.
Down that path lays disaster.
Furthermore, it is more than high time that we completely abandonned the jury system, in favour of a judicial decision-making process.
I wouldn't trust some random dozen of my "peers" to service my car; cut my hair; do my gardening; teach my children; etc... etc....
So why entrust them with important duties and decisions ??????
Courts of law are the arena of the legal professional, not the amateur. "Juries" ought to be reserved for infantile, impotent parlour games like Big Brothers, X-Factors, Come Dancing & Help! I'm Stuck In The Jungle - or whaever it's called.
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