Met Police sergeant Matt Ratana was just weeks from retirement when he was shot in the thigh and chest by weapons-obsessed Louis de Zoysa at a custody suite in Croydon, south London
A man who shot dead a veteran policeman while in a police station cell has been jailed for life and will spend the rest of his life behind bars after he was sentenced to a whole life order today.
Met Police sergeant Matt Ratana was just weeks from retirement when Louis de Zoysa fired an antique Colt revolver at him which he had been hiding under his coat. De Zoysa, who was in handcuffs at the time, shot Sgt Ratana twice before shooting another bullet which hit himself.
The bullet hit gunman De Zoysa in the neck, later causing him to have a stroke which has left him with severe brain injury and in a wheelchair. The 26-year-old from Banstead, Surrey, a former UCL student who worked as a coder for HMRC, stood trial at Northampton Crown court for Sgt Ratana’s murder
During his trial De Zoysa gave some of his evidence by writing and drawing on a court whiteboard and the trial was conducted in simplified language because of his brain injury.