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Hostage negotiators were in the middle of being briefed when a police officer shot dead a man who was holding his ex-partner at knife-point during a tense two-hour siege, it was revealed at an inquest this week.

Two trained police mediators arrived just minutes before Dean Joseph, who was holding his ex-partner hostage in a basement flat in Canonbury, was fatally shot by armed officer PC Stuart Brown on September 4 last year.

The inquest into the 40-year-old’s death heard that throughout the incident, it was left to PC Philip Clark – a local beat officer with no experience of hostage mediation who arrived first at the scene – to try and diffuse the situation.

On Wednesday, PC Clark told St Pancras Coroner’s Court that Mr Joseph had smashed his way through the window of the bedroom of his former partner Julie Moyses, before putting a seven-inch blade to her throat and warning her: “This ends. I will f****** kill you.”

The officer described the stand-off during which he tried to maintain a dialogue with Mr Joseph from outside the bedroom window of Ms Moyses’ flat in Shepperton Road.

“He appeared extremely aggressive and he was pushing the woman back,” PC Clark told the jury. “Ms Moyses was crying hysterically, sobbing, saying, ‘Please, no’. I repeatedly told him to calm down. I said: ‘Please talk to me’.”

Describing the sequence of events leading up to the fatal shots being fired, PC Clark told the jury that Mr Joseph moved the knife from Ms Moyses’ neck to his own. He said the woman then tried to bite his hand, after which Mr Joseph brought the knife back to Ms Moyses’ throat in an “extremely forceful motion”.

The officer said that Mr Joseph subsequently withdrew the knife from Ms Moyses’ throat again, before he “lunged towards” her, saying the words “f****** kill”. At this point, he said, he heard the first shot being fired from PC Brown’s G36 carbine rifle.

“I believed he was going to kill her,” PC Clark said. “I spent an hour and 36 minutes trying to prevent that from happening.”

He added: “I heard a groan, a very deep groan, and immediately there were other bangs.”

Earlier in the week the jury heard evidence from Inspector Andrew Stacey, the tactical firearms officer with overall responsibility for the operation, who revealed that:

• He was made aware of Mr Joseph’s name during the incident but this information was not passed on to PC Clarke, who throughout the incident wrongly referred to Mr Joseph as “G”;

• Mr Joseph told officers during the siege he believed he was at risk of being Tasered, but was not explicitly made aware that armed officers were outside;

• Inspector Helen Cryer, the police negotiating coordinator, did not meet Inspector Stacey until nine minutes after arriving at the scene after being sent to the wrong location;

• He had started briefing Inspector Cryer, who was joined by the two mediators shortly afterwards, nine minutes before the shots were fired;

• He believed the operation was “overt”, but the court heard that officers surrounding the flat, including PC Brown, believed it was a “covert” operation;

• The use of “less lethal options” – a Taser and a baton gun – were considered, but not deemed appropriate because Mr Joseph, at a distance of 15 feet, was at the “maximum effective range” for a Taser, and in close proximity to Ms Moyses.

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.

Last week the inquest heard that, 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 had been living with Ms Moyses for a period of time but after he started beating her she threw him out of the house and, with the support of her sons, took out an injunction against him.

Mr Joseph 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.