The Osterley Times: Cleared of lying, but still questions for Met chief to answer

It beggars belief.

Policemen at Lord's cricket ground had heard the rumour that an innocent man had been shot. A detective at Marylebone police station had heard that there had been a "massive cock-up ... involving a Brazilian tourist". A Met secretary even overheard the words "they got the wrong man" and "Brazilian".

And yet we are told that Sir Ian Blair was completely unaware of these rumours. I was sitting in a car in the west end of London thinking that the fact that the radio kept referring to Jean Charles de Menezes as "a suspected suicide bomber" meant that he probably wasn't one, and yet we are told that Sir Ian Blair remained blissfully unaware of any doubts that they had got the wrong man.

But Sir Ian apparently remained oblivious. "When the commissioner left New Scotland Yard mid evening on July 22 2005 he was almost totally uninformed," the report concluded. "He did not know of the considerable information within the MPS in relation to the emerging identity for Mr de Menezes and the likelihood that he was not involved in terrorism. Numerous others within the MPS did know."
It concluded: "The Metropolitan Police Authority should consider why the commissioner remained uninformed of key information."

The report is putting all the blame on Andy Hayman, the Assistant Commissioner, who, it is said, deliberately withheld information.

It [the report] accused Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman, the head of counter-terrorism operations, of "misleading the public" by trying to hide the fact that the dead man was not a suspect of the 21 July suicide bombing plot. His actions, says the report, "cause us serious concerns".

The report reveals that Mr Hayman had briefed crime reporters on the day of the shooting that the dead man was not one of the 21 July suspects. However, that information was "deliberately withheld" from a press release he helped to write later on. The report states: "Assistant Commissioner Hayman chose to mislead the public by his actions."

Sir Ian is being almost bullish in stating his innocence.

"Despite much speculation to the contrary, I did not lie to the public. The IPCC describes me, when I left New Scotland Yard on the evening of 22 July as 'being almost totally uninformed'. As far as the shot man was concerned, I knew my officers were conducting inquiries expeditiously... I neither believe that my senior colleagues let me down, nor that my position on that night was unreasonable."

He's almost proud of the fact that he has been found to have been "almost totally uninformed". And yet, that surely raises further questions surrounding his competence. If I, sitting in a car, had begun to ask questions about the incident - based solely on reports I was hearing on the radio - then surely it is not unreasonable to expect that the leading police officer in the land would have entertained similar doubts? And yet we are told that he didn't. And, listening to him yesterday, he appears to be proud of that.

In those twenty four hours of apparent ignorant bliss Sir Ian Blair 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.

That's why it's so vital to him that he has been found to have been so profoundly ignorant of the rumours that were swirling around the rest of the Met.

Sir Ian made clear yesterday that had the IPCC found the allegations against him substantiated he would have resigned.
"If I had lied I would not be fit to hold this office. I did not lie," he said.

There are other reasons to resign besides lying. The simple fact that Sir Ian Blair never asked whether or not Charles de Menezes was wearing a suicide belt is surely enough to make him reconsider his position. When news that a "suspected suicide bomber" had been shot came across my radio that was the first thing that went through my mind. Are we seriously to believe that Sir Ian never even thought about this? That he never asked anyone that obvious question? And, if he didn't, why didn't he?

But the family of Mr Menezes claimed the police had "got away with murder" as they denounced the IPCC findings as a whitewash. It was, they said, "unbelievable" that the Commissioner was unaware of what had happened. Relatives also pointed to a passage in the report which established that Mr Menezes was not given a proper chance to protest his innocence. The police had stated that he was challenged and warned before being shot but that was untrue.

Patricia Armani da Silva, a cousin, said: "No one has been held responsible for anything, no one is going to be prosecuted. The police have been allowed to get away with murder. We are very disappointed."

Sir Ian made many false statements during the twenty four hours in which he claims to have been totally ignorant of what had taken place.

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 was false. Jean Charles de Menezes was never challenged by police officers and given any chance to clear himself, he was simply shot dead in cold blood as he sat on a tube train. In order to justify those false statements - and to justify the fact that Sir Ian attempted to quash the IPCC from conducting an independent investigation into the shooting - it is vital that he is found to have been totally ignorant of almost everything that was going on around him that day.

The inquiry presented an extraordinary picture of chaos, confusion and rumour on the day Mr Menezes was shot. A number of senior officers at Scotland Yard began to realise within hours that an innocent man had been killed, as did officers unconnected with the case and even some off-duty colleagues. Yet Sir Ian was said to have been kept out of the loop of "crucial information" about the identity of Mr Menezes until the next morning.

Mr Menezes, an electrician from Sao Paulo, was killed just after 10am. His wallet was later searched and revealed his Brazilian identification. The report says that, within minutes, news of that reached the Commissioner's office and his chief of staff, Caroline Murdoch. However, at 3.30pm, Sir Ian told a press conference that the shooting was linked to the "ongoing and expanding" investigation into the 21 July plot.

I don't believe that "within hours" the police began to realise that an innocent man had been shot. They shot him on a train in order to stop him from blowing himself up. It is therefore inconceivable that no-one lifted his shirt looking for a suicide bomb. When none was found, the doubts must surely have started to bubble almost instantaneously.

And yet, these doubts never percolated to the top, which accounts for why Sir Ian stood in public and made several totally false and misleading statements.

If that's the truth, if it really does all come down to Andy Hayman, then Sir Ian still has a lot to answer. Not the least of which is why weren't his suspicions aroused by the same information that was making the rest of us question what had just taken place? And can he be said to be in charge of his own office if these rumours are swirling around and he is totally unaware of them?

He's supposed to our number one police officer. If I'm sitting in a car in west London asking these questions - with much more limited access to information than he has - then it really beggars belief that he never, at any point in those twenty four hours, asked himself the most obvious question of the lot.

"Have we got the right man?"

A totally innocent man was shot dead in broad daylight in central London and, two years later, no-one has been found to be responsible. And, as far as we know, that same "shoot to kill" policy is still in place. There has been no change in the policy, nor does the report suggest one.

The report tells us nothing, other than the suggestion that Sir Ian Blair was totally unaware of what was going on in his own office. And there's scant comfort in that for anyone. Especially for the family of Jean Charles de Menezes.

Click title for full article.