Mark Duggan had a gun with him when he was shot dead by armed police and was lawfully killed, an inquest jury in Britain has found.

Mr. Duggan was shot dead by armed police in London in August 2011, sparking rioting there that eventually spread to other British cities.

Police intelligence suggested Mr. Duggan was a gang member involved in gun and drugs crimes and officers believed he had just collected a gun in east London.

A firearms officer shot him twice as he emerged from a minicab that police had forced to stop. One bullet went through his arm, the other hit his chest and killed him.

At the centre of the inquest was the issue of a handgun, found, said police, 10 to 20 feet from Mr. Duggan's body and on the other side of park railings.

In heated exchanges with the Duggan family lawyer, police denied suggestions they had planted the gun. The weapon was wrapped in a sock.

Neither had any trace of Mr. Duggan's DNA or fingerprints, but his prints were found on a shoebox police said had been used to carry the gun inside the minicab. The jury

'Honest belief' the suspect had a gun

One witness, Witness B, told jurors Mr. Duggan was "definitely" holding a phone in his hand when he was killed.

But the police marksman who fired the shots, granted anonymity, told the inquest he had "an honestly held belief" that the suspect had a gun and was about to shoot him.

Mr. Duggan's death prompted rioting in Tottenham, north London, which eventually spread to other areas of the capital and beyond.

The UK Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) is still investigating the incident. In an interim statement in August, it said it had so far found no evidence of criminality by police officers.

But Mr. Duggan's family has said it has not been kept fully informed of the investigation's progress and condemned the IPCC for suggesting early on that Mr. Duggan, a father-four, had died in "a shoot-out with police".