Anthony Grainger police shooting 'was murder', claims mum

Police believed Anthony Grainger was preparing for an armed robbery

The mother of a man who was shot by police has told the inquiry into his death she believes it was "murder".

Marina Schofield told Liverpool Crown Court her "whole world fell apart" when she was told her son, Anthony Grainger, had died in March 2012.

Mr Grainger, 36, was shot once in the chest during a Greater Manchester Police operation in Culcheth, Cheshire.

Officers believed the father of two was part of a group planning an armed robbery.

Mr Grainger, from Bolton, had been under surveillance by police before he was shot through the windscreen of a stolen Audi in a car park.

Marina Schofield described how six police officers visited her home on the evening he died.

"They told me Anthony had been shot in Culcheth by the police," she said.

"My whole world fell apart.

Anthony Grainger's partner told the inquiry they had been trying for children

"All I could think about was how I was going to tell his two young children that their daddy was gone forever and that the police did it."

Mr Grainger's partner Gail Hadfield-Grainger sobbed as she told the inquiry they had been trying for children.

The police force has said it "maintains that the suspicions held by those investigating Mr Grainger were both reasonable and correct".

The marksman who shot Mr Grainger had earlier told the inquiry he thought officers were "in extreme danger" as he believed Mr Grainger "was reaching for a firearm".

Mr Grainger was shot once in the chest during a Greater Manchester Police operation in Culcheth, Cheshire

The inquiry has also heard there were problems with the competency of four of the five commanding officers in the operation, including one who had failed a specialist firearms course in 2011.

Three men, all from Manchester, who were arrested at the scene were later cleared of conspiracy to rob by a jury.

The public inquiry, chaired by Judge Thomas Teague, is expected to run until 21 April.