Blair gives Met chief his backing
Tony Blair has today said he has “complete confidence” in the beleaguered Metropolitan police commissioner.
The prime minister’s comments come after leaks of an independent report into the killing by police of an innocent Brazilian last summer, suggest it will severely criticise Ian Blair.
The Met chief is already facing questions about a dawn anti-terror raid by 250 officers on an east London house earlier this month, in which two men were arrested, one of them shot.
Despite police claims that they acted on “specific intelligence” of a terrorist threat, no evidence has yet been found and the two men were released without charge.
However, today Mr Blair insisted police were justified in taking action, saying: “The threat is real, we know it’s real, because it killed innocent people in this country.
“In my view, if our police were not acting on such information then we would have had a right to complain. I don’t want them to be under any inhibitions at all other than what is proper and natural.we as a country have to stand behind them.”
Mr Blair added: “This is not the moment to question the police commissioner, police or security services who in my view are doing a fine job in protecting this country.”
His support echoes that of mayor of London Ken Livingstone, who reserved his anger for the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), which he said had allowed its report into the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes last July to be leaked.
One version of the IPCC report, seen by The News of the World, suggests Sir Ian ordered his officers to stop investigators attending the scene in south London last July – despite the fact that they should be allowed to begin their probe as soon as possible.
It also says that some of his senior aides knew de Menezes, 27, who was shot as a suspected suicide bomber at Stockwell underground station a fortnight after the London bombings, was innocent 12 hours before this conclusion was made public.
Meanwhile, another leak in The Guardian says the IPCC report will criticise Sir Ian for trying to delay the independent inquiry, saying it allowed officers to tamper with evidence.
But Mr Livingstone told Today that Sir Ian “absolutely did not attempt to prevent an inquiry”, and warned that the “drip, drip, drip” of reporters who had been show the report was all aimed at “damaging Sir Ian and the reputation of the police”.
“What [the Met commissioner] simply did was write to the head of the civil service, and I think he copied the letter to the IPCC to say that while they were working on the site, could they not have the police complaints people trampling all over it,” he added.
Meanwhile, Len Duvall, chairman of the Metropolitan police authority, said the release of the two men from the Forest Gate raid without charge had not undermined his confidence in Sir Ian – although he accepted the Met must explain why the raid was necessary.
“I think there are some questions the Met has to answer and we have a duty to explain to the public how we operate and the actions that we take,” he said.
