Today Manchester coroner, Nigel Meadows has ruled that the five officers involved in the death of Jordan Lee Begley will be named and must give evidence in an open court, despite their requests for anonymity.

Begley died shortly after being fatally tasered in his home on the 10th of July after his mother had called the police concerned that her son was going to seek vengeance on a group of men who had accused him of theft. Officers from the uniformed response, and the counter terrorism and specialist firearms unit were deployed and involved in the restraint that ultimately led to Begley’s death.

The officers had originally been granted an interim anonymity order preventing press from formally identifying those involved in the killing. Instead it was requested that the officers were to be identified by the pseudonyms D14, J1, H4, H1 and E21 who tasered Begley. GMP also claimed that granting the officers full anonymity was in the best interest of their personal safety, amidst claims that organised criminal gangs had placed a £50,000 bounty for shooting dead an armed police officer.

However the request to make the order permanent was met with contention from numerous parties. Various media outlets including lawyers from the Press Associated campaigned that the officers should be named as the public had a right to know what was going on in the public court of law. Caoilfhionn Gallagher, a representative of the media held that to deprive the public of this right would be “a major derogation from the open justice principle”. The decision to reveal the officers names was also met with much relief on behalf of Begley’s family.

The names are expected to be released February 2nd 2015, although there is still time for GMP to appeal. An inquest into Begley’s death is will follow later in the summer.

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