A lawyer representing relatives of Giedrius Vasiljevas raised concerns in court on Monday (March 17) that if delays persisted with the disclosure of evidence, the inquest might have to be adjourned.
It is currently listed in October, but Maya Sikand KC said the family had also still not received body-worn camera footage of the shooting, or an investigation report by the police watchdog.
“Unfortunately, we literally have nothing other than the 100-page medical report,” she said, adding that she was becoming “anxious” as to whether the current inquest date could be met.
Mr Vasiljevas, 40, from Lithuania, was killed by police at his home in Weston Green, Dagenham, on November 23, 2023.
He was an intermittent patient of mental health trust North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT) and known to drug and alcohol dependency service Change Grow Live.
His family have filed a misconduct complaint against police, but no details have been given in open court about the allegations it contains.
Two branches of his family are represented by different lawyers in the inquest proceedings, each being treated as “interested persons” – a legal status entitling them to access evidence before the inquest and question any witnesses called to testify.
NELFT, the Metropolitan Police and the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) are also interested persons.
The IOPC indicated at a pre-inquest review late last year that its draft report had found no wrongdoing by police.
Mrs Sikand told senior east London coroner Graeme Irvine she and her clients had not even received the IOPC’s list of used and unused evidence gathered in its investigation into the shooting.
“We need to have those schedules, please, in order for us to have any sense of what there is and what we might need in the future,” she said.
“We still don’t have the post-mortem report. Please can we have that? There shouldn’t be any reasons for restrictions on that report – none that I’m aware of.”
She added that the family had been given “a limited opportunity to view” some of the body worn camera footage, but copies had not been handed over, even though it was “fundamental” to the case.
“We don’t have it and we really need that, and I don’t believe that there’s any reason not to disclose that to us,” Mrs Sikand continued.
“I understand that your court – and you – is under extreme pressure, [but] I’m really deeply concerned, given the lack of progress since the last pre-inquest review, that we don’t come back in the same position and we are going to have to adjourn the entire inquest.”
“I am concerned about the delays in disclosure,” Mr Irvine told East London Coroner’s Court.
He ordered the Metropolitan Police Service to conduct a “security check” on the lists of used and unused evidence – making sure they did not contain undisclosable information, such as firearms officers’ identities – and disclose them within one week.
He gave the force 28 days to conduct similar checks on all other outstanding documents.
The coroner said he had an “ominous” feeling about the amount of evidence which had so far been disclosed to him from the investigation, which “seems rather scant in its scope”.
He said he had 14 anonymised witness statements from police, two named statements from senior officers, transcripts of body worn camera footage and police radio messages, a 999 transcript and a copy of the live computer records generated as the incident unfolded.
He said that after watching portions of the body worn camera footage, Mr Vasiljevas’s family had queried the accuracy of the transcripts.
A further pre-inquest review was scheduled for May 2.
Ruby Shrimpton, representing the Met Police, told Mr Irvine: “One of the priorities we will be considering is getting the material to the family as soon as it is possible to do so.”
