Anthony Grainger death: Police shooting used old briefing

Police believed Anthony Grainger was preparing for an armed robbery

A policewoman who prepared a profile on a man fatally shot by an officer has said she never expected it to be used to brief a firearms operation.

Anthony Grainger, 36, was shot in a car park in Culcheth, Cheshire, in March 2012 in an operation planned by Greater Manchester Police (GMP).

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

PC Rachel Griffiths told Liverpool Crown Court she had made the profile in relation to a 2011 operation.

The inquiry heard that the profile was passed to the Force Robbery Unit in February 2012, but officers were told they would need to update it themselves.

Mr Grainger, who was unarmed, was shot once in the chest while he was in a stolen Audi

PC Griffiths said she would expect any document used to brief firearms officers to be "bespoke".

She added: "I would expect the briefing to be done from a completely different document, not this one."

Before his death, Mr Grainger, from Bolton, had been under surveillance, set up to target an organised crime gang believed to be conspiring to commit armed robberies.

He was unarmed when he was shot through the windscreen of a stolen Audi in a car park on 3 March 2012.

Briefing mistake

PC Griffiths said the profile she prepared was about an investigation into the burglary of "sensitive information" from a serving police officer's car.

"That was September 2011, this was now February 2012, so it would be their responsibility to check any intelligence," she said.

The inquiry has heard that an Independent Police Complaints Commission investigation found the 2012 operation relied heavily on "out of date" intelligence in relation to Mr Grainger and that briefings to officers contained "inaccurate information".

PC Griffiths admitted she had made a "mistake" in the profile, where she inaccurately stated that Mr Grainger had been charged with a 1995 armed robbery at a Post Office and that the charge had been ordered to lie on file.

The inquiry heard Mr Grainger had been found not guilty of offences of conspiracy to rob and robbery at a trial - while his brother, Stuart, had been charged with attempted robbery and that charge had been ordered to lie on file.

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

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

The public inquiry, chaired by Judge Thomas Teague, resumed on Tuesday after hearing two weeks of evidence in closed session.

It is expected to continue until April.