Azelle Rodney shooting: Police marksman Anthony Long cleared of murder

Mr Rodney was shot six times by police

Azelle Rodney was killed by a fire arms officer in 2005 (Justin Sutcliffe)

A police marksman who shot a man six times at close range in 2005 has been cleared of murder.

Anthony Long, 58, shot the 24-year-old as part of an operation to foil an attempted robbery on Columbian drug dealers.

A trial heard that Mr Long took just six hundredths of a second to open fire on the man after his unmarked police car pulled up alongside him.

He fired eight shots in 2.1 second, six of which hit and fatally injured Mr Rodney.

The suspected armed robber was in the back seat of a Volkswagen Golf which was boxed in and unable to move using a stop by armed police in Mill Hill, North London.

The prosecution alleged that Mr Long did not have time in the six hundredths of a second before he opened fire to judge whether Mr Rodney had posted any risk to the public.

The police officer, who is now retired, denied the charge or murder and said that he believed his colleagues were in imminent danger from the man.

The police say their intelligence suggested the group of suspected armed robbers, which included Mr Rodney, had been armed with at least one machine gun as they prepared to rob the Columbian gang.

A search of the car after the shooting however revealed three weapons, none of which were automatic, and only one of which was loaded.

The incident happened on the evening of Saturday 30 April in 2005.

An Old Bailey jury deliberated for 12 hours and nine minutes and found Mr Long not guilty of murder.

A judge-led inquiry in 2013 found that the shooting was not legally justified and that the police officer's account of the lead-up to the incident should not believe accepted as far.

The jury were not told of the outcome of the inquiry, however.

Mr Long's operational history, which included an incident in which he shot two other suspects dead, were not revealed either. Mr Long was commended seven times during his 33-year career in the police.

Mr Rodney's mother Susan Alexander said after the 2013 inquiry that her son's death was "wholly avoidable".

"The fact that he was strongly suspected of being involved in crime does not justify him or anyone else being summarily killed," she said.

Seema Malhotra, Mrs Alexander’s local MP, told the Independent last year that the case had had a dramatic effect on Mr Rodney's family.

“What has really struck me is that this is a family whose life is just on hold,” she said.

Reporters at the court say Ms Alexander did not react when the verdict was delivered.

Additional reporting by PA