Can the Met kill an innocent man - and NOBODY be accountable?

Yesterday the Metropolitan Police was found guilty of breaching health and safety regulations when they shot dead Brazilian immigrant Jean Charles de Menezes on a train at Stockwell tube station on July 22nd 2005, two weeks after the suicide bombs that killed over 50 people on three trains and a bus. The facts are now known. The police had been keeping watch on a block of flats where Hussain Osman, a terrorist suspect, lived. Tragically for him, Mr Menezes lived in the same block and, when he left home to travel to Stockwell, police became confused.



Jean Charles de Menezes

The result of that confusion was that armed officers pursued Mr. Menezes onto Stockwell station and then onto a tube train where he was shot seven times at close range with special bullets designed to flatten inside the body rather than go straight through. These were officers trained to kill and fully intent on doing so. Nothing was left to chance - except that they got the wrong man.

Now the time was very fraught. Fifty five people had been killed two weeks before and the capital was on a knife edge. The police were only too conscious of the awesome responsibility of preventing more deaths of innocent people and knew only too well that their firearms experts might be called on to deliver fatal blows in a situation which was far from normal.

But however fraught the situation, however much the police were under strain, they undoubtedly screwed up big time - and an innocent man lost his life.

At the outset of the case, the prosecution outlined NINETEEN areas in which the police failed to take adequate steps to prevent the kind of tragic accident which ultimately occurred. The police denied these failings but the jury ultimately found the Met guilty and they were fined a total , including costs, of around half a million pounds.

Now nobody wants witch hunts against an organisation which is paid to protect the public, and which they were quite clearly trying to do. But Mr.Menezes was an equally innocent member of that public..and he lost his life. Of the nineteen failings highlighted at the start of the trial many were highlighted as operational failings. The litany of accusations is filled with the expression 'failure to communicate'. There was confusion over what the strategy was between the control room, the surveillance team and the firearms officers. There was no contingency plan for dealing with and clearly identifying people who left the flats other than the suspect. Official briefings were described as 'inadequate'. There was a failure to stop Mr. Menezes before he reached the tube station at which point armed officers considered they had only one option. The shift Commander, Cressida Dick, was not kept fully informed about the whereabouts of firearms teams, despite the fact that her decisions were ultimately decisive.



Cressida Dick

Now the jury made it clear that they don't hold Commander Dick responsible for what happened. The Home Office has made it clear that they don't hold her boss, Chief Constable Sir Ian Blair responsible either and he will continue as London's top policeman despite the Force having been found guilty of serious and grave failings which led to a man's death.




Now Sir Ian seems to be a decent kind of a man who has the best interests of the public at heart. I am sure Commander Dick is of similar mind. They are good conscientious police officers.

But they are also in positions of responsibilty. Responsibility for what turned out to be a day of chaotic communication failure which had tragic consequences. If neither of them was responsible for the picture of indecision and muddle which has emerged from July 22....then who was? Surely it is not right that Britain's most powerful police force can so mishandle a suspected terror operation which led to a frightening assassination of an innocent man without someone carrying the can?

Yet thats the way it looks. The Force is nailed for half a million pounds by a jury as being completely culpable in a man's death yet NOBODY pays the price? It used to be considered honourable for bosses in this situation to fall on their proverbial swords but maybe our politicians have themselves set the trend for committing appalling errors of judgment yet failing to resign.

I suspect this affair is not over yet and, although Sir Ian is reputed to be a top class policeman and his loss would be considerable, he might do well to think further about the viability of his position and the integrity of his Force.