The Osterley Times: Met chief could face charge over Menezes

Sunday, June 04, 2006

Met chief could face charge over Menezes

There's been quite a sensational twist in the enquiry into the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian who died on London's underground after police mistakenly took him for a terrorist suspect.

The Crown Prosecution Service is considering legal charges against Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police commissioner.

Legal sources close to the CPS case have revealed that, following a four-month review of a report by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, prosecutors are considering whether the command team are ultimately responsible, a decision that could give rise to a charge of gross negligence manslaughter against Blair and two other senior figures.
Blair may also face prosecution for breaching health and safety laws, with prosecutors examining whether the commissioner failed in his 'duty of care' towards the London public. The Health and Safety at Work Act makes employers liable for such a duty of care, and prosecutors are considering whether this extends to the 27-year-old, who was shot at Stockwell tube station last summer. Until now, it had been widely assumed that the CPS was only examining the possibility of charges against the police officers who were involved in the actual shooting of de Menezes.
The revelations come as Blair faces fresh questions over a raid in London on Friday in which a young Muslim man was shot. The Independent Police Complaints Commission launched an inquiry into the shooting, the first by anti-terror officers since the death of de Menezes.

Solicitors for the shot man, Mohammed Abdul Kahar, last night protested his innocence and alleged that police failed to give warning before opening fire.

The shooting of de Menezes was one of the most shocking things to happen in London since the 7-7 attacks, especially since it betrayed certain obvious flaws in police plans to counter possible suicide bombers.

For instance, why wasn't de Menezes stopped in the street, from a distance, and asked to remove his shirt which is standard Israeli procedure for dealing with suspected suicide bombers?

Why was he ever allowed to board a bus, when a bus had, in fact, been one of the targets on 7-7?

Legal sources said the two senior officers named as facing possible charges were Commander Cressida Dick, who oversaw the operation that day, and Commander John McDowall, who was in charge of intelligence operations.
De Menezes, an electrician, was shot seven times after he boarded a train at Stockwell tube station in south London a day after the failed 21 July suicide attacks in the capital. He had been targeted by police after being identified, wrongly, as a suspected suicide bomber. Police have been accused of communication failures and creating confusion. Witness statements suggested that de Menezes had done nothing to arouse the suspicion of officers trailing him that day.
If charges were brought against the head of Scotland Yard, police and legal sources close to the CPS case reveal that the 'most likely' would be prosecution for alleged breaches of health and safety law, an offence that can result in an unlimited fine, rather than a manslaughter charge.

The sources also say that the officers who actually shot de Menezes are "highly unlikely" to face charges.

CPS lawyers are still considering whether or not to bring charges against officers who allegedly falsified a surveillance log detailing the final movements of de Menezes to obscure the fact they had wrongly identified him as a suspected suicide bomber.