Mark Duggan was shot dead by police after picking up a gun from Kevin Hutchinson-Foster, the court heard.

‘Mark Duggan gun’ trial: Ex-girlfriend accused of changing evidence

by Court Reporter Thursday, September 20, 2012
6:34 PM

The ex-girlfriend of the man charged with passing a gun to Mark Duggan just minutes before he was shot dead by police was this afternoon accused of changing her evidence.

Desire Cox, who had been called as a prosecution witness, was quizzed over the statement she had given to police about the River Island shoe box said to have contained the gun Mr Duggan received.

Edward Brown QC suggested her ex-lover, Kevin Hutchinson-Foster, had asked her to change her story.

Miss Cox admitted she had spoken to Hutchinson-Foster on numerous occasions on the telephone since his arrest and before she made a statement to police at her house in July this year.

“You have been contacted by him or someone on his behalf to change your evidence,” Mr Brown said.

“I didn’t change it,” she replied.

“At that time [July] I had just had a baby. I was tired and to be honest I just wanted them [the police] to leave. I probably didn’t read it properly.”

Mr Denney, defending Hutchinson-Foster, said: “What is suggested by the prosecution in this case is, that afternoon or in the early evening, Hutchinson-Foster went out of your house carrying a River Island shoe box and came back without it. Would you recollect if such an event had happened?”

She replied that she would and it had not, adding: “He left in the evening and did not come back.”

The court has previously heard that the gun found near Mr Duggan after he was shot on August 4 contained DNA traces from Mr Duggan, Hutchinson-Foster and a barber from Hackney who the accused admits pistol-whipping five days earlier. The shoe box also had the fingerprints of Mr Duggan, Hutchinson-Foster and Miss Cox on it.

The prosecution claims Mr Duggan took a taxi on August 4 last year to collect the shoe box containing the gun from Miss Cox’s home in Leyton, after being in touch with Hutchinson-Foster by mobile phone. He then continued in the same cab until police, who had been following him, forcibly stopped the taxi in Ferry Lane, shooting him as he reached for the gun on getting out of the vehicle, it is claimed. The shoe box was found in the back of the minicab, the court heard.

Hutchinson-Foster, 30, of no fixed abode, denies “selling or transferring a prohibited firearm”, a modified BBM Bruni Model 92 handgun, to Mr Duggan between July 28 and August 5 2011. The trial continues on Monday.