Warning: Armed, Dangerous Lunatics On The Loose In London

Following the verdict at the Old Bailey in which the Metropolitan Police was found guilty of "a catastrophic series of errors" in the events leading to the public execution of Jean Charles de Menezes, we hear that the killers who shot the Brazilian electrician seven times in the head with dum-dum bullets at point blank range while he was being held down (and still managed to miss several times) are back on active duty and have been for some time.

Despite their notoriety, the pair's identity has never been revealed, and their names are a closely guarded secret within the elite Met firearms unit, now known as CO19.

Retired superintendent Phil Manns, a former commander of the firearms unit, has described the pair as "incredibly mature, well-adjusted, competent, professional officers" [my emphasis].

So, the assassins who actually pulled the trigger(s) have been found to be in no way culpable. What a surprise! Perhaps the officer in charge of the botched operation is in some way responsible. You'd think so wouldn't you? But no, apparently not:

In a highly unusual move, the judge, Mr Justice Henriques, allowed the jury to insert a rider, or caveat, into the verdict stating that Cressida Dick, the commander in charge of the operation on the day, should not be held personally culpable for the events.

Well then, if neither the assassins or their commander are in any way responsible for the tragedy then surely the blame must fall on the The Metropolitan Police commissioner, Sir Ian Blair. Wrong again:

The Met commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, said after the verdict that he would not be resigning and would go back to New Scotland Yard to "get on with my job". The prime minister, Gordon Brown, and the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, said Sir Ian retained their "full confidence".

In other words absolutely no one is to be held accountable for the cold-blooded murder if an innocent man. Why is this?

The judge called the case a "corporate failure, not an individual failure". He said it was hard to decide the appropriate fine because "any costs to the police is a cost against a police officer on the streets".

Well how bloody convenient! In the end the fine that was decided was a pathetic £175,000 with £385,000 costs. And this after the Met had tried to cover its tracks with a tissue of lies and had done its best to smear Jean Charles de Menezes. There are so many lies, smears and episodes of incompetence that it's hard to know where to start, so in no particular order:

• The Met dishonestly manipulated a photo of Jean Charles de Menezes in an attempt to make him look more like Hussain Osman, one of the men who tried to bomb London's transport network on July 21 2005.


• We were told by the Met that Jean Charles de Menezes was killed because he acted in an "aggressive and threatening manner" when challenged and was "up for it"


• The facts that Jean Charles de Menezes had apparently taken cocaine and had a fake stamp in his passport* was used as a smear to somehow justify the execution.


• After the shooting, we were told that Jean Charles de Menezes was an illegal alien. He wasn't


• We were told that he was wearing bulky coat, refused to stop when challenged and then vaulted the ticket barriers. Not true


• We were told that there was no CCTV footage at the Stockwell tube station. There was (at least in the ticket area, no footage was recorded on the train or on the platform as far as we know).


• The spotter who was supposed to verify Osman's identity had gone to the toilet and was absent from his post when de Menezes left his home.


• A suspected bomber was allowed to make two bus journeys, but were told to hold back and wait for the firearms team to handle the arrest.


• And yet, Cressida Dick told the court that she never gave an order to shoot. The Operation Kratos "shoot-to-kill" procedures were never invoked, and no Kratos codeword was issued. Somebody must have.
  

Add to all this the chaos and confusion in the control room and the fact that we now allow Israel, of all countries, to train Met Police firearms officers, we can see that this was an disaster just waiting to happen. This still leaves us with the question as to why with all these catalogued errors and lies, no one is being prosecuted or asked to resign? The "corporate failure, not an individual failure" line just doesn't wash. After a fuck-up this big there should be a whole bunch of resignations if not prosecutions. When corporations fail, resignations follow.

The only answer is that the Police are never held responsible when they kill innocent people and those responsible are often promoted so as to rub our noses in it. The only time accountability came close was when the police gunned down Harry Stanley in 1999 and five years later when the officers responsible were suspended from duty, over 100 armed officers returned their weapons in protest leading to the reinstatement of the culprits. In the case of the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes a clue was given by defence counsel Ronald Thwaites QC as to what would happen:

A successful prosecution of the Metropolitan police over the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes would be like putting handcuffs on detectives and would damage the fight against serious crime in the UK, a jury was told yesterday.

A trial at the Old Bailey heard that the attempt to prosecute police over the death of the 27-year-old Brazilian, who was shot dead by police marksman at the height of the anti-terrorist operation in July 2005, was based on ignorance and hindsight.

"The prosecution in this case are attempting to dictate to the police how they should do their job from a position of near ignorance," defence counsel Ronald Thwaites QC told the jury.

He added that a conviction would "inhibit their effectiveness in combating serious crime" and said the trial should be viewed as a test case. "The prosecution do not appear to understand how the police organise themselves, how they conduct major operations, or how they work."

There you have it. Thankfully a jury was able to provide the correct verdict despite the lies given by the Met, but no prosecutions will come of it. And this was known before the trial ever started. The only way the incompetence could be highlighted at all was by charging the Met with "health and safety" violations. What a damning indictment of British justice!

* Clarification from John Lettice in the comments:
The Home Office never categorically stated that his leave to remain stamp was forged. It suggested that it was in a statement issued after an extensive record search, but didn't go as far as saying so. Covered in this article in The Register towards the end (another good piece by The Reg here).

More bloggage on this from Ten Percent, Mask of Anarchy, Obsolete, Paul Linford, Iain Dale, Pickled Politics, Bloggerheads, Chicken Yoghurt, Beau Bo D'Or, The Yorkshire Ranter, Blood & Treasure...

Tags: Jean Charles de Menezes, Stockwell Police Shooting, UK Police, British Justice, Ian Blair