By Police watchdog investigating why Plymouth killer had shotgun permit returned last month
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) are investigating why the Plymouth killer who shot dead five people on Thursday had been given back his confiscated gun and permit.
Jake Davison was stripped of the weapon and its licence in December after he was accused of assault, according to the police watchdog.
Now, the IOPC are looking into why Devon and Cornwall Police made the decision to return them to him in July, reports the BBC.
Davison, 22, shot dead his 51-year-old mother Maxine at a house in Biddick Drive before he went into the street and shot dead Sophie Martyn, aged three, and her father Lee Martyn, aged 43.
He killed Stephen Washington, 59, in a nearby park, before shooting Kate Shepherd, 66, on Henderson Place. She later died at Derriford Hospital.
Davison also aimed and shot at two local residents – a man aged 33 and a 53-year-old woman – who are known to each other, in Biddick Drive.
His attack, in the Keyham area of the city, lasted about six minutes before he turned the gun, described by witnesses as a pump-action shotgun, on himself.
Before the shooting took place, Davison had taken to the internet to post rants about single mothers, branding his own mother “vile, dysfunctional and chaotic”.
The IOPC said it had launched an investigation on Friday evening after it received preliminary information that Davison’s firearm and licence were returned to him in early July this year.
The certificate and shotgun had been removed from him by police in December 2020 following an allegation of assault in September 2020, the watchdog said.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson had earlier said the issue of how Davison came to legally own a gun should be “properly investigated”, adding that the shooting was an “absolutely appalling” incident.
On Friday evening, hundreds of people attended a vigil near where the shootings occurred.
