OPINION: Earlier this month, Simon Chesterman, the National Police Chief's Council lead for armed policing, responded to Prof. Maurice Punch's article on armed police and the use of lethal force, arguing that command accountability is as robust as it can be under the current law. Here Prof. Punch - with Ralph Crawshaw and Geoffrey Markham - responds in turn, underlining the importance of accountability where tactics are highly likely to cause death.

LONG READ: High profile shootings like that of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell Station in 2005 exposed weaknesses in the accountability mechanism around the police use of fatal force. Maurice Punch, Ralph Crawshaw and Geoffrey Markham, QPM argue that the issue has largely been dealt with through fudge, fiction and a refusal to acknowledge changing realities - leaving individual firearms officers to carry the can.