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Anti-terror chief went abroad for a holiday on 21/7
Paul Cheston, Courts Correspondent29 Sep 2008
Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist chief went on holiday on the day of the attempted 21/7 bomb attacks, an inquest heard today.
Former deputy assistant commissioner Peter Clarke returned the next day when innocent Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, was shot dead by police at Stockwell.
Mr Clarke told the inquest into Mr de Menezes's death that he had been preparing for a family holiday when suicide bombers attacked the London transport network on 7 July 2005, killing 52 people and injuring 700.
He stayed at his desk but after two weeks decided he could afford to leave the country, even though it was on the highest level of terrorist alert.
On the morning of 21/7 he flew abroad but found out about the second failed suicide bomb attacks, which took place between 9am and 10am that day. He told the court that he rang Scotland Yard and spoke to Commander John McDowall and it was decided he did not need to return to London.
" When the events of the 22nd unfolded (the shooting of Mr de Menezes when he was mistaken for one of the 21/7 terrorists) I got the first flight back. I got to Scotland Yard on the evening of 22/7," he told the inquest.
Mr Clarke explained why he left London on 21 July. He told the inquest that on 7/7 his 16-year-old son had been passing through King's Cross bound for Cambridge. The boy arrived moments after suicide bomber Jermaine Lindsay detonated his bomb on a Piccadilly line train that had just left King's Cross.
The teenager telephoned his father to say he could not get into the station and had seen smoke and people running.
Mr Clarke said: "I hadn't heard by that stage - it was just before 9am - that this was a terrorist attack but from what he was telling me, I had my suspicions about what it could be.
"So I gave him the instructions to get away from there as quickly as possible.
"And in fact we, my wife and I, then told him to get on a bus to get away."
Less than an hour later bomber Hasib Hussain set off a bomb on a bus in Tavistock Square, near King's Cross.
Mr Clarke told the inquest he and his wife were unable to contact their son for some time after this. He said: "For me, I was in the centre of things so perhaps it wasn't so difficult. But for my wife it was extraordinarily difficult.
"Our holiday had been due to begin a day or two after that. I told my family to go and obviously I wouldn't be able to join them. So they went, but by about July 20 my wife was very anxious, and possibly suffering a bit of delayed shock from what had happened on the 7th."
Mr Clarke then joined his family on holiday on 21 July.
He told the inquest at the Oval that following the 7/7 attacks the House of Commons, Buckingham Palace and Scotland Yard were "completely locked down" for 90 minutes for fear of another al Qaeda strike. Nobody was allowed in or out of any of the buildings during the alert on 12 July. Police feared a fifth terrorist belonging to the same cell as the 7/7 suicide bombers was ready to attack.
Mr Clarke said: "New Scotland Yard and Parliament were completely locked down for over one and a half hours - and Buckingham Palace as well. It was 12 July 2005, the day the bomb factory in Leeds was discovered (for the 7/7 attack), the bomb car was discovered in Luton and firearm was discovered.
"CCTV from Luton station cameras suggested there could possibly be a fifth bomber associated with the attack whom we had not been able to trace.
"There was a tangible air of tension and expectation of further attacks."
The inquest continues.
