A BRITISH POLICE OFFICER is to be investigated after it was alleged he had deliberately planted song titles into evidence he gave at an inquest investigating the shooting dead of a barrister.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission told Reuters that an officer – known for the moment as just ‘AZ8′ – was suspected of having deliberately inserted song titles into his testimony at the inquest into the death of Mark Saunders.

Saunders was shot dead in May 2008 by police marksmen at the end of an armed standoff at his home in Chelsea. An inquest in September found that Saunders had been killed lawfully; it had heard that he had been drunkenly firing shots through the windows of his flat.

The officer in question was one of the police officers to open fire on Saunders, and told the inquest that he had left himself exposed after turning on a powerful light to shine into the flat, adding that he should have shot at Sunaders sooner.

While the suspect nature of some of AZ8′s evidence was raised at the time, and led to a reprimand by his managers, the matter has since come to the attention of senior officers who have referred the matter to the complaints commission.

While no indication has been given as to the particular song titles that may have have been deliberately planted into AZ8′s evidence, it is considered highly probable that the officer may have been taking part in a widespread prank known as ‘Rickrolling’, where pranksters plant the name of Astley’s 1987 hit ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ in documents, or force unsuspecting internet users to open Astley’s song on services like YouTube.

It is, of course, also possible that the officer in question simply had 99 problems making his mind up.