Mark Duggan police shooting: Death was 'karma'

A man accused of supplying an illegal handgun to a man shot dead by police has said Mark Duggan's death was "karma", a court has heard.

Kevin Hutchinson-Foster, 30, said in a police interview of which a transcript was read out at Snaresbrook Crown Court that he was "not pals" with Mr Duggan.

The defendant, who denies the charges, also said: "If you live by the gun you die by the bullet."

He added that he had been beaten with a gun by a gang including Mr Duggan.

Mr Hutchinson-Foster alleges this happened a week before Mr Duggan was shot dead by police in Tottenham on 4 August last year.

The court heard when told his DNA had been found on an illegal handgun found at the scene of the shooting, the defendant said: "If someone hits me with something and I bleed on it I get in trouble?"

The jury has been told that some months after giving the statement, Mr Hutchinson-Foster pleaded guilty to possession of a handgun and an assault on a barber in Hackney, east London, which took place close to the time he claimed he had been attacked by Mr Duggan elsewhere.

The prosecution alleges the incident in the hair salon is the real reason his blood was found on the gun he supplied to Mr Duggan a week later.

Earlier, a senior investigator with the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said he failed to grasp the significance of a shoebox until a week after the shooting.

The prosecution alleges that Mr Duggan's fingerprints were found on the box which had contained the gun.

Deputy senior investigator Colin Sparrow said by the time he was told about the shoebox, the minicab Mr Duggan had been travelling in had been moved to a police car pound and seals on the car had been broken.

Another IPCC investigator has told the court that he discovered the shoebox had been moved within the vehicle, apparently during searches.

Mr Sparrow said the minicab had been moved from the scene the day after the shooting and then returned there the same day, before being removed for a final time that night - a process which a recovery driver last week told the court had been "unusual".

The trial continues.