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An armed police officer held a hostage-taker in the sight of his rifle for 30 minutes without warning him that his life was in danger before firing two shots, an inquest has heard.

Giving evidence to the inquest into the death of Dean Joseph for the first time, PC Stuart Brown, who shot dead the 40-year-old following a tense two-hour siege on September 5 last year, told the jury that he believed the operation was “covert, in terms of arms being displayed”.

It was the first time the family of Mr Joseph came face-to-face with the officer, who was accompanied into the court room on Tuesday by three security guards as he gave evidence in the third week of the hearing.

PC Brown was part of the armed unit called to the siege involving Mr Joseph, who was holding his ex-partner, Julie Moyses, hostage in a basement flat in Shepperton Road. He had smashed his way through the window of the bedroom, before putting a seven-inch blade to her throat with the words: “I will f****** kill you.”

PC Brown told the inquest he took up position just behind PC Philip Clark – a local beat officer with no experience of hostage mediation who arrived first at the scene – who was trying to diffuse the situation.

As soon as he was at the window of the flat PC Brown put his weapon “in the aim” and remained in that position for 30 minutes, he told the jury. Asked by coroner Mary Hassell what he understood his role to be, he said: “I had the responsibility for protecting Ms Moyses, should Mr Joseph put her life in imminent danger. I understood that, in case of a threat to her life, I would fire shots.”

He said that during the 30 minutes he was in the aim the situation remained “constant”, with Mr Joseph holding the knife to his own throat, before he “thrust his arm out to Ms Moyses, and the blade made contact with her”.

“He was about to kill Ms Moyses,” PC Brown said. “I knew what I needed to do to prevent her death. I quickly reassessed the situation and I squeezed the trigger.”

Last week Inspector Andrew Stacey, the tactical firearms officer with overall responsibility for the operation, told the jury he believed the operation was “overt”, but that this was not communicated to PC Brown and other armed officers outside the window.

Asked by the coroner why he maintained cover and did not warn Mr Joseph, PC Brown said: “A distressed person could react unpredictably to firearms officers. It was a very delicate situation.”

He was then asked why he did not give Mr Joseph a “reality check” – a warning that a gun was pointed at him and that his life was in danger if he did not surrender.

“Doing that seemed a very bad idea,” he replied. “It could have aggravated the situation.”

PC Brown denied suggestions he “panicked” before pulling the trigger of his G36 Carbine rifle. The officer admitted conferring over timings of the events with other officers, but denied that their discussions were an attempt to justify the shooting.

Leslie Thomas QC, barrister for Mr Joseph’s family, asked him: “Your attempt to justify why you fired your weapon has been tainted with the conferring [with other officers], and the need to confer was an inadequate attempt to get stories straight, because there was no need to have shot Dean Joseph, because he could have been warned earlier on, isn’t it?”

PC Brown simply replied: “No.”

A post-mortem examination found that the cause of Mr Joseph’s death was shock and haemorrhage as the result of a gunshot wound to the back of the left chest. He also suffered a bullet wound to his upper left arm.

At the time of his death, Mr Joseph was staying in a hostel in Northumberland Park, Tottenham, from which he was about to be evicted.

He was the first person to be fatally shot by Met firearms officers since 29-year-old Mark Duggan was killed in Tottenham in 2011.

The inquest continues, with a verdict likely to be delivered next week.