Learning Experience

A mere eleven years after the event, Sussex police have issued a formal apology to the family of a man they shot dead in his own home. Quite apart from the fact that they were indiscreet enough to do it before 11 September 2001, when America was attacked by terrorists, they do seem to have made a bit of a mess of things. The victim was naked, unarmed and had nothing illegal in the place, and it has taken Sussex police eleven years to discover that there might have been one or two failures in the planning and (to put it tactfully) execution. The officer who did the deed claimed that he acted in self-defence against something or other; he was, as so often happens, acquitted of murder and manslaughter; and, according to the lawyer for the victim's family, the police "issued damaging and incorrect information at the time of the shooting". Imagine that. Fortunately, since nobody did anything wrong, much less got punished for it, "the force has learnt significant lessons from this tragic event".