Kevin Hutchinson-Foster was jailed for 11 years. Picture: Metropolitan Police/PA Wire

A man who supplied Mark Duggan with a firearm shortly before his fatal shooting by police has been jailed for 11 years.

Mark Duggan

Drug dealer Kevin Hutchinson-Foster was sentenced at the Old Bailey today.

The shooting of Mr Duggan, in Ferry Lane, Tottenham, on August 4 2011, sparked the London riots.

Hutchinson-Foster, 30, denied selling or transferring a prohibited firearm to Mr Duggan between July 28 and August 5, 2011.

A jury failed to reach a verdict but he was convicted at the Old Bailey following a retrial.

Judge David Radford jailed him for seven years for supplying the gun, for four years for possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence and nine months concurrently for assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Hutchinson-Foster is already in custody serving a sentence for drugs offences and was on licence at the time of the offence.

The four year jail term was in relation to an incident where he admitted using the same gun to “pistol whip” a barber five days before.

He is seen on CCTV threatening Peter Osadebay then returning and beating him with the gun until he nearly lost consciousness.

Judge Radford told Hutchinson-Foster he could not be held responsible for what happened later.

But he had passed an illegal weapon with a bullet in its magazine to Mr Duggan “for what must have been for a serious criminal purpose”.

Stuart Denney QC, defending, said: “He cannot take responsibility for what happened in Ferry Lane or in terms of the riot.

“No one could have foreseen what happened. There is a real issue as to what happened in Ferry Lane.

“There are those who think that in some way, Mr Hutchinson-Foster’s conduct contributed to the death of Mark Duggan, which is entirely inaccurate.

“There was a series of threats which continued whilst he was in custody. He has twice been placed in solitary confinement.”

Mr Duggan’s shooting and the finding of a gun in Ferry Lane led to controversy and denials from supporters that he had been armed.

There was speculation that Mr Duggan was on his way to avenge the death of his cousin Kevin Easton, 23, who was stabbed in a club in March 2011.

But a source has since said that investigators looking into Mr Duggan’s death have found nothing to suggest that was true.

The jury was told it was not their task to decide the “rights and wrongs” of Mr Duggan’s shooting, which will be examined at the inquest into his death in September.