A British documentary-maker shot in the Gaza Strip in 2003 was a victim of a "calculated and cold-blooded murder", the inquest into his death was told today.

James Miller, 34, from Braunton, Devon, was shot by a soldier from the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) while making a film about Palestinian children in the Rafah refugee camp. He was asking the soldiers if it was safe to leave the area when he was shot in the neck.

Chris Cobb-Smith, a former Royal Marine and weapons inspector, told the inquest at St Pancras Coroner’s Court in London: "This was calculated and cold-blooded murder, without a shadow of a doubt."

"These shots were not fired by a soldier who was frightened, not fired by a soldier facing incoming fire - these were slow, deliberate, calculated and aimed shots."

The 10-member inquest jury heard how Mr Miller had been wearing a helmet and flak jacket with the letters TV written in bright fluorescent tape as he approached the soldiers at around 11pm on May 2, 2003. He was holding a torch which shone on a large white flag being held by his interpreter.

A shot was fired, followed by a second - and fatal - shot 12 to 13 seconds later. Several more shots were fired at in bursts hitting the Palestinian house from which the TV crew had emerged.

Mr Cobb-Smith said this illustrated that the shots were deliberate.

"That is not a nervous soldier," he said. "It is a soldier aiming and firing deliberately. He should not have been firing anywhere near a lit building, anywhere near where he knew there were women, children or foreign journalists."

Mr Miller’s family - including his 35-year-old wife Sophy, his parents, Geoffrey and Eileen, as well as his sisters, Katie and Anne, and brother, John - attended the second day of the inquest.

The inquest jury was shown a film entitled Killing Is Easy. In the film, Major Freddie Mead, a ballistics expert, was shown examining the fragments of bullet which had lodged into Mr Miller’s flak jacket after he was shot.

Maj Mead said the bullet was standard issue for Israeli soldiers and said the fact that the bullet had buckled meant it had been fired at close range, "certainly less than 200 metres".

Footage of Mr Miller’s death was shown to an unnamed Israeli soldier who was quoted as saying that members of the IDF should not fire unless they felt they were under threat.

He was quoted as saying: "There is no chance that it was an accident - the soldier could clearly see him, it was a perfect shot. I do not know what to say, it looks like murder, it looks like he wants to kill him."

Mr Cobb-Smith said that although it was night-time, the TV crew would have been back-lit by lights from the house. The Israeli soldiers would also have had night vision equipment which would have made it obvious that the cameraman, reporter and interpreter presented no threat.

The security expert was also critical of the Israeli army as it was unable to provide a record of soldiers’ weapons and any ammunition they may have discharged.

"Any responsible army would maintain an accurate record of which weapon was issued to which soldier," he said.

After the shooting, the guns of the IDF soldiers involved were not seized for 11 weeks, the inquest heard, and even then the soldiers were given two weeks’ notice that their weapons would be confiscated. The Israeli forces, who did not wish to take part in the inquest, were also accused of bulldozing the site of the shooting three days later, destroying crucial evidence.

Annie McGuinness, a general surgeon specialising in accident and emergency, said that the cameraman would have suffered massive blood loss, losing as much as a litre in the first minute.

"There would have been a rapid loss of consciousness, within a minute," she said. "I think death would have been really quite rapid.

"With this kind of injury there is very little that could have been done that would make a difference."

The inquest continues.

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