Police 'distracted' by summit, inquest told

SENIOR police officers were "distracted completely" by the G7 summit in Cornwall two months before five people were killed in the Keyham shootings, an inquest has heard.

- By TED HENNESSEY Press Association

Jake Davison, 22, killed his mother, Maxine Davison, 51, after a row at their home in the Devon city on the evening of August 12 2021.

He then shot dead Sophie Martyn, three, her father Lee Martyn, 43, Stephen Washington, 59, and Kate Shepherd, 66, in the Keyham area of the city.

Davison, an apprentice crane operator, turned the black Weatherby pump-action shotgun on himself before armed police officers reached him.

Superintendent Kara Sherwood, of Devon and Cornwall Police, told the ongoing inquest into the deaths, in Exeter on Friday, that the firearms department was "fundamentally under-staffed" in the lead-up to the incident.

The G7 summit saw world leaders gather in Carbis Bay in June 2021, and was logistically the largest and most complex event undertaken by Devon and Cornwall Police.