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Menezes jurors in silence at the spot where he was shot
Paul Cheston, Courts Correspondent23 Sep 2008
Jurors in the Jean Charles de Menezes inquest today stood in silence at the spot where the 27-year-old Brazilian was shot dead by police marksmen.
The six-woman, five-man panel was retracing Mr de Menezes's final steps and went to Stockwell Tube station where the shooting took place.
They filed through the ticket hall, down the escalator and onto platform two where Mr de Menezes had planned to take a northbound Northern line train.
The jurors barely exchanged a word and coroner Sir Michael Wright did not speak throughout the 10-minute visit. The silence was only broken when a train full of passengers thundered through the station without stopping at the platform.
While Northern line trains were not stopping at the station, the Victoria line continued to operate as normal.
On their way in and out of the station a court official pointed out the points the jurors were passing on their printed itinerary. The second day of the inquest into the death of the electrician on 22 July 2005 was set aside for a tour of key locations in the ill-fated police operation.
A convoy of coaches left the Oval cricket ground where the hearings are taking place with a police escort.
The coroner travelled with the jury in the front coach, followed by legal teams travelling with the de Menezes family in the second and a media bus bringing up the rear.
The visit to Stockwell was scheduled for an off-peak time to minimise disruption for commuters.
After the Tube station, the jurors were taken to the Leman Street police station in the City, where firearms officers had assembled, then on to New Scotland Yard and the Nightingale Lane police station in Balham, where the unit received a further briefing.
The inquest convoy then travelled to Scotia Road, Tulse Hill, where Mr de Menezes lived in a block of flats. Finally, they fol lowed Mr de Menezes's route when he walked to Upper Tulse Hill to catch a bus to Brixton where he got off at the Tube station only to re-board the bus when he found the station shut. De Menezes then rode the bus down to Stockwell.
In his opening yesterday, the coroner told of the confusion which existed before two firearms officers shot Mr de Menezes after mistaking him for failed suicide bomber Hussain Osman who had been on the run since attempting to detonate his bomb on the Tube the day before.
Two weeks earlier, British-born al Qaeda bombers had succeeded in blowing up three Tube trains and a bus on a day of carnage in the capital.
Jurors have been told how firearm officers made a split second decision to kill the suspect.
Sir Michael told the court that they had been convinced Mr de Menezes was Osman who was carrying out a second suicide bomb attack and could only be stopped by an "instant kill".
The coroner emphasised Mr de Menezes was entirely innocent.
The inquest continues.
