Policeman shot fellow officer 'instinctively', inquest is told

A specialist firearms officer who shot dead a colleague at point blank range on a training exercise acted "instinctively", an inquest was told today. PC Ian Terry, 32, who was not wearing body armour, was hit by a round from a pump action 12-bore shotgun using a specialist charge known as round irritant personnel ammunition, which contains an inert powder designed to burst tyres and break windows. Terry, who later died in hospital, was playing the role of a criminal fleeing in a car with another colleague when he was hit in the chest at a disused factory in Manchester in June 2008, the inquest heard. The inquest continues.