Plymouth shooting: Killer had shotgun license returned by police weeks before attack
The UK’s police watchdog has launched a probe into why the man who shot dead five people in Plymouth on Thursday had his confiscated gun and permit returned by police just weeks before the attack.
Jake Davison, 22, shot his mother Maxine Davison and four members of the public – including a three-year-old girl Sophie Martyn and her father Lee Martyn – before turning the gun on himself.
Hundreds of people attended a candlelit vigil in Plymouth last night, close to where the attack took place.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) is now investigating Devon and Cornwall police, after it emerged that they had returned Davison’s shotgun and its certificate in early July.
Davison had been stripped of the gun and his license in December following an assault allegation made against him two months prior.
The IOPC will investigate whether officers made a sufficient assessment of Davison’s mental health condition before granting him the shotgun license.
Currently, the watchdog does not know whether the returned shotgun was the one used during Thursday’s six-minute attack. Witnesses have described the weapon as a pump-action shotgun.
Prior to the attack, Davison posted a number of videos on his “Professor Waffle” YouTube channel, which has now been removed, in which he launched lengthy diatribes saying he was “defeated by life” and comparing himself to the titular character of sci-fi film The Terminator.
In his final video posted on 28 July the apprentice crane operator complains about his failure to find a girlfriend and his social isolation.
He describes himself as an incel — short for involuntary celibate — an online subculture of men unable to attract women sexually.
The movement is often defined by misogynistic beliefs and has been linked to previous acts of violence, including the 2018 van attack in Toronto that killed 10 people.
In one video Davison describes women as “very simple-minded”, adding: “Why do you think sexual assaults and all these things keep rising? The reality is that women don’t need men no more and they certainly don’t want and don’t need average men and below average, you have to go abroad to find a woman.”
Davison’s videos also signal that he had an obsession with guns.
Regional IOPC director David Ford said: “We will examine what police actions were taken and when, the rationale behind police decision-making, and whether relevant law, policy and procedures were followed concerning Mr Davison’s possession of a shotgun.”
In the wake of the attack, Prime Minister Boris Johnson had called for the question of how Davison came to have a gun license should be “properly investigated” and described the shooting as “absolutely appaling.”
Luke Pollard, the MP for Plymouth Sutton & Devonport, said the attack was “unspeakably awful” and that he was “utterly devastated” to learn one of those killed was a child.
The attack, which is the first mass shooting to take place in the UK for 11 years, is not believed to be terror-related.