Lewis Skelton: Police shooting inquest summing-up 'inadequate'

Lewis Skelton died in hospital after being Tasered and shot by Humberside Police officers

A coroner's summing-up of an inquest where a man was found to have been unlawfully killed by police was "gravely deficient", a court has heard.

Lewis Skelton, 31, was carrying an axe when he was shot twice in a Hull street in November 2016 after he failed to respond to police instructions to stop.

The officer who fired the fatal shots has launched a legal challenge against the inquest verdict.

Leeds Crown Court was told it was "unsafe" and should be quashed.

Mr Skelton's family have previously spoken of their anger over the challenge and said they could not allow police to "simply have the conclusion scrapped".

The judicial review was told there was not a clear and properly directed summing-up to allow the inquest jury to reach their conclusion of unlawful killing as opposed to lawful killing.

Lewis Skelton's family said they were angry at the legal challenge

Jason Beer KC, representing Humberside Police, said that it was "not only unhelpful, but positively damaging", adding: "It was gravely deficient and inadequate."

The court heard how the inquest last year was told the firearms officer, known as B50, held a genuine belief that Mr Skelton posed an imminent threat to the public.

The court was read statements from witnesses involved in the six-week inquest who described hearing the officers shouting for Mr Skelton to drop his axe.

They said he refused to do so and was seen raising the weapon in the air shortly before he was shot on Francis Street.

Sam Green KC, representing the officer, said: "We do not dispute he intended to cause serious bodily harm because that's a given when you discharge a firearm at a subject.

"Our issues for the judge and coroner to grapple with is the lawfulness of that activity and in this context whether or not B50 honestly held the belief that he was acting in defence of others in response to an immediate risk of death or serious harm to a third party."

Mr Green added it was his submission that "it's inherently probable that B50 had this honesty of belief in all the circumstances".

The hearing continues.