A police officer was just seconds away from being killed before a colleague shot the fleeing motorist dead, he told a jury yesterday.
Scotland Yard marksman Martyn Blake, 40, is accused of shooting dead unarmed black man Chris Kaba without justification when Mr Kaba tried to escape police.
But yesterday a fellow firearms officer said he feared for his life, claiming the 24-year-old driver could have run him over.
The fatal shooting on September 5, 2022 happened after armed police stopped the Audi Q8 that Mr Kaba was driving because the vehicle had been used as a getaway car in a shooting the night before in Brixton, South London, jurors were told.
Six police cars pursued Mr Kaba through South London before boxing in his vehicle in a residential street in Streatham.
Mr Kaba attempted to flee by ramming a police vehicle, revving backwards and forwards as ten armed officers surrounded the Audi.
Yesterday one of the officers said he feared he would be run over.
The Metropolitan Police officer, referred to as DS87, who was standing beside Blake when he opened fire, said: ‘I have got no doubt in my mind, given a moment, a second longer the Audi would have come forward and I would probably have gone underneath.
‘I felt in fear for my life. I think that had the actions not been taken at that point, I would have died and would have been underneath the vehicle or been seriously injured.’
He recalled the loud revving and smell of burnt rubber as Mr Kaba used the car to ram his way out, telling the Old Bailey: ‘I had never experienced that level of threat from someone, certainly when pointing a firearm.
‘To have no regard for members of the public or the police in the vicinity. It was clear to me even if I have taken a shot, the vehicle would have moved forward.
‘It was instinct or a way of survival to begin to withdraw and get away from the vehicle as best I could. It happened so quickly.’
The officer, who has been granted anonymity, was the operational firearms commander in charge of initiating the enforced police stop that night.
Seconds before the shooting, he attempted to smash the Audi’s windows with the barrel of his gun and tried to force the doors but found them locked.
He told jurors: ‘This is the first instance a vehicle has tried to ram its way out.
‘When police shout ‘stop police’, we usually have compliance. It’s not something I have experienced before.’
In dramatic police body worn video footage, Mr Kaba can be seen flinching as the torch on a police gun is shone in his face.
The driver held his hands up by his head, revealing he was not carrying a weapon seconds before the shooting.
DS87 said he raised his semi-automatic carbine at ‘the same second’ as Blake, but his colleague fired first at the driver’s head.
The commander organised first aid for the victim who died in hospital hours later.
When asked about the risk officers were facing that night, DS87 said: ‘Based on all the information I had – an individual potentially armed with a firearm, a firearm which had been used in a public area to potentially injure others so potentially that suspect could still be armed with a firearm.’
The officer gave evidence from behind a screen in court yesterday just a few metres away from Mr Kaba’s family who sat in the well of the court.
Blake denies murder.
The trial continues.