No officers charged over De Menezes shooting
No individual police officers will face charges over the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes last July, it has been announced.
But a senior lawyer from the crown prosecution service (CPS) said the office of the Metropolitan police commissioner would be prosecuted under the Health and Safety Act for failing to provide for the welfare of the innocent Brazilian.
“The two officers who fired the fatal shots did so because they thought that Mr de Menezes had been identified to them as a suicide bomber and that if they did not shoot him, he would blow up the train, killing many people,” Stephen O’Doherty said.
“In order to prosecute those officers, we would have to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that they did not honestly and genuinely hold those beliefs.”
The Metropolitan police service (MPS) welcomed the decision not to prosecute individual officers, but said it was “concerned and clearly disappointed” at the decision to prosecute the office of the commissioner for breaches of health and safety.
“Despite the uncertainty this prosecution will create we will not shrink from our key role of protecting public safety,” a spokesman said.
He insisted the use of force was still a “legitimate policy” adding: “In the absence of a viable alternative, we will continue to use it where necessary to protect London and Londoners from any threat posed by suicide bombers.”
However, the family of Mr De Menezes condemned the CPS’s decision as “shameful”, with his cousin, Alex Pereira, declaring: “We have waited for a year – a very hard year – and they have today said something ridiculous.”
Another cousin, Patricia Armani da Silva, said: “I think this is shameful. These people in power, they wanted to cover up their blame. By using this [health and safety] law to cover up their own mistakes they are treating my cousin as a dead animal.”
The Brazilian electrician was killed during an anti-terror operation on July 22nd last year – exactly two weeks after the London bombings – at Stockwell underground station.
Mr O’Doherty said a number of individuals “had made errors in planning and communication” which culminated in Mr De Menezes’ death, but concluded that “no individual had been culpable to the degree necessary for a criminal offence”.
As for claims that the log recording the incident had been doctored, he said two experts could not agree “to the required standard” that it had been altered or if it had, by whom.
However, he stated that the “operation errors” constituted a breach of the duties owed to non-employees under the Health and Safety Act, and a prosecution had been started accordingly.
The independent police complaints commission (IPCC), whose investigations formed the basis of the CPS decision, said it would publish its report into the shooting “as soon as legal considerations allow”.
