A handgun was passed to Mark Duggan just 15 minutes before he was shot dead by armed police, sparking the riots that blighted the country last August, a court heard today.
Kevin Hutchinson-Foster, 30, is accused of "selling or transferring a prohibited firearm" to Mr Duggan between July 28 and August 5, 2011.
A jury at London's Snaresbrook Crown Court today heard that just 12-15 minutes after Hutchinson-Foster allegedly supplied the gun to Mr Duggan, the 29-year-old was shot dead by police.
The fatal shooting in Tottenham, north London, on August 4, 2011, sparked disorder across the capital which spread to other cities.
Hutchinson-Foster, of no fixed abode, denies passing the BBM Bruni Model 92 handgun to Mr Duggan, contrary to the Firearms Act 1968.
Opening the case today, prosecutor Edward Brown QC told the court: "On August 4 last year a handgun was recovered in Ferry Lane in Tottenham, north London.
"It had been in the possession of a man named Mark Duggan. The gun was loaded - it had a bullet in its magazine.
"The evidence demonstrates that that gun at that scene had been passed to Mark Duggan by this defendant, Kevin Hutchinson-Foster, shortly before the minicab in which Mark Duggan was travelling was stopped by police in Ferry Lane in Tottenham Hale.
"There in Ferry Lane Mark Duggan was shot and fatally injured by the police as a result of his possession of that gun and what he was thought to be about to do with it.
"The firearm was a BBM Bruni Model 92 handgun. It had been modified so that it would fire 9mm bullets - a lethal firearm as you will hear.
"The charge this defendant faces is the supply or transfer of that gun to Mark Duggan."
Mr Brown told the jurors they would hear evidence from a number of sources, adding: "That evidence demonstrates that this defendant Kevin Hutchinson-Foster, some 12-15 minutes before Mark Duggan was stopped, supplied that gun to him, Mark Duggan having travelled to the defendant to collect it as had been arranged."
Mr Brown said Mr Duggan, apparently an associate of the defendant, travelled via minicab to the area where a girlfriend of Hutchinson-Foster lived so he could collect the gun, which was hidden in a shoebox.
He said phone evidence showed they were in touch as Mr Duggan took the cab from Hoxton to Leyton, and they were in contact en route.
After the handover, Mr Duggan carried on towards Tottenham Hale with the gun, taking it out at some point during the journey.
"It was not long into this second part of his journey that the minicab with Mark Duggan inside was stopped by police," Mr Brown said. The court heard the gun was found nearby.
He said the jury would hear evidence about the minicab journey, and how Mr Duggan collected the gun hidden in the shoebox by Hutchinson-Foster.
Evidence will also show fingerprints on the box matched the defendant, Mr Duggan, and a woman at whose address Hutchinson-Foster was when he handed over the gun; and that DNA recovered from the scene in Tottenham connects the defendant to the gun.
The jury will also hear mobile phone evidence, evidence from the minicab driver who saw the handover, and evidence from an earlier incident just six days before, when Hutchinson-Foster was seen to use the same gun to threaten and beat another man.
Mr Brown said the defendant lied to police about his possession of the gun, and about his links to Mr Duggan.
"He provided a dishonest explanation as he hoped it would avoid his true responsibilities, say the Crown, in respect of the gun and its supply by him to Mark Duggan," he said.
The prosecutor told the jury: "The death of Mr Duggan on August 4 last year has been regarded as the event that sparked the riots in north London, which then spread across London and then to other cities and which attracted widespread publicity in the United Kingdom and abroad.
"Let me say immediately there is one task in this trial that is not necessary for you the jury to confront - that is to decide one way or the other the rights and wrongs of the shooting of Mr Duggan.
"That is a task properly left to an inquest and the jury at that inquest who will examine this issue and likely far wider issues than those that you will be concerned with.
"That inquest is to take place before a jury early next year and that jury will of course hear the evidence that will focus on those issues. You have a different task.
"They were tragic events in Ferry Lane, on any account. But the issue for you, the jury, in this case is who supplied the gun to Mark Duggan - put another way, the issue for you to decide is whether it is shown by the Crown, on the evidence, to have been this defendant Kevin Hutchinson-Foster who supplied that gun to Mark Duggan."
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