Met chief kept in dark over De Menezes

A report into the shooting of Charles de Menenzes is said to be about to declare that the failure - for more than 24 hours after the shooting - to inform Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police's chief commissioner, that an innocent man had been shot was "incomprehensible".

The Guardian has learned that the still-secret report by the Independent Police Complaints Commission finds that senior Scotland Yard staff feared within hours that an innocent man had been shot but did not tell their boss, Britain's most senior police officer. Mr de Menezes, a Brazilian, was shot dead at 10am July 22 2005 after officers mistook him for a terrorist.

Sir Ian Blair claims that for twenty four hours after the shooting of a totally innocent man that he was unaware that the man killed was not a suicide bomber.

I find that claim simply astonishing, if only because I personally was able to suspect that an innocent man had been shot purely from reports of the incident broadcast on the radio.

The first reports stated that a "suspected suicide bomber" had been shot at Stockwell tube station. Now the very fact that they referred to him in such a way told me that whoever they shot certainly wasn't wearing a suicide belt. We can say for a fact that the first thing they did was lift the dead man's shirt and check for such a device. The fact that he wasn't wearing one was why the police said they had shot a "suspected" suicide bomber.

And yet for 24 hours Sir Ian Blair continued to make statements that implied that the shot man was, in fact, a terrorist.

Not only did he do that, but he also attempted to quash the IPCC from conducting an independent investigation into the shooting saying that to do so would "hamper" the police hunt for the bombers.

Just after 3.30pm that day, Sir Ian made a series of statements at a press conference about the shooting which his staff already feared to be incorrect. "This operation was directly linked to the ongoing terrorist investigation ... the man was challenged and refused to obey police instructions," Sir Ian said.

This information was flat wrong. Charles de Menezes was never challenged by police and was never given any opportunity to "obey police instructions". He was simply mowed down as he sat on a tube train.

I find it inconceivable that Sir Ian Blair at no point asked if the shot man was wearing a suicide belt. I mean, it was the first thing that went through my head when I heard the report. Had the man been wearing a suicide belt then the police had averted a major public disaster. Cue flashbulbs: heroes one and all.

Yet the reports continued to talk of a "suspected" suicide bomber and Sir Ian Blair continued to talk in a manner that was contradictory to the information that the rest of the police force were releasing.

The IPCC makes no recommendation that Sir Ian Blair should face disciplinary action, and it has found no evidence to support allegations that he lied about what he knew and when he knew it.

The report appears to support the theory that for some reason, which it describes as "incomprehensible", those under Sir Ian did not tell him about emerging clues pointing strongly to the fact that the man who had been shot was innocent, and not a suicide bomber about to attack London's transport network.

This is where I and the IPCC report part ways. If Sir Ian Blair did not entertain any doubts about the status of the shot man - for a full twenty four hours after the event - then he's a strange kind of policeman. Many people, much further removed from the investigation than he was, had certainly began to read the signs that all was not what it seemed.

And yet we are asked to believe that Britain's leading police officer remained blissfully free of any doubt for a full 24 hours after the event. Did he even ask anyone whether or not the shot man was wearing a suicide belt or carrying any form of bomb? And, if he didn't ask, why didn't he ask such a blatantly obvious question?

Nor does the IPCC's criticism stop at Sir Ian Blair:

Britain's most senior counter terrorism officer, Andy Hayman, has received a "tough" warning letter from the IPCC. It investigated him over alleged differences in statements he made to journalists about how confident he was that a terrorist had been shot and those made to a crisis meeting of the Met's top officers on the day of the shooting. Sources say he has written a and robust response to the IPCC warning letter, though any decision about whether he should face disciplinary action would be taken by the Metropolitan Police Authority.

Andy Hayman has a certain amount of form when it comes to public relations following bungled police operations.

When 250 policemen raided a house in Forest Gate - acting on evidence given to them by a man who's IQ was 31 points below the national average - and then proceeded to shoot a totally innocent man in the chest, Andy Hayman told us: "We'd better get used to this sort of thing."

Those of us who don't want to "get used to this sort of thing" were extremely disconcerted when Tony Blair went on to award Andy Hayman with a CBE.

Don't get me wrong. No-one is saying that mistakes don't happen. They do. But, in both these cases, the mistakes involved the shooting of innocent civilians. The least we can ask in such circumstances is that the police give a full, frank and - hopefully - apologetic account of what has taken place, why it happened, and what lessons can be learned.

In the cases of the shooting of both de Menezes and of Mohammed Abdul Kahar at Forrest Gate, one is left with the impression that the police cared little for such trifles and see this as a necessary price that we all have to pay in the "war on terror". That is unacceptable.

If Sir Ian Blair really was unconcerned as to whether or not a shot man was carrying a bomb then he really should start to consider his position. And that is the defence he appears to be proffering.

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Tags: Charles de Menenzes, fatal shooting, Sir Ian Blair, Stockwell tube station, war on terror