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Menezes was shot after 'obvious police failings'
Rob Singh, Evening Standard21 Oct 2008
JEAN CHARLES DE MENEZES was shot dead after "obvious failings" by the Metropolitan Police, a senior surveillance officer admitted today.
The Scotland Yard officer, known by the codename James, said the Brazilian electrician could have been stopped safely before he was gunned down by marksmen at Stockwell Tube station in July 2005.
He told the inquest into Mr de Menezes's death that his bosses "took too long" to tell officers whether they should stop the 27-year-old getting on the Tube.
During fierce questioning, Michael Mansfield QC, for the de Menezes family, asked James: "What went wrong on that day, do you agree, was a serious lapse in communication between the command at operation or control room and you on the ground?"
The officer, who was in one of the police teams pursuing Mr de Menezes, replied: "Sir, there obviously were failings. But I do not think it is my role to decide what did go wrong. I think that's the job of this court."
James said his officers had the "resources" to stop Mr de Menezes.
Coroner Sir Michael Wright asked him: "Having regard to the resources you had, did you think that the combination could have made the stop safely?"
James replied: "Yes I did sir." But then in the moments after Mr de Menezes got off a bus at Stockwell, James said the operation room was taking "too long" to tell him whether he should stop their suspect. He said: "I said, look this is going on too long. I need my telephone, and I said if you don't give me a reply in the next 10 seconds I'm going to have to hang up.
"At the end of that period I did hang the telephone up and I then started to try and place my team in preparation for a Tube follow, bearing in mind the amount of time that the subject had been off the bus." Mr de Menezes was shot seven times in the head after being mistaken for failed suicide bomber Hussain Osman on 22 July 2005. He was tracked by surveillance officers after leaving a block of flats linked to Osman in Scotia Road, Tulse Hill.
James was unaware that Mr de Menezes had been shot after entering the station. Remembering the day, he added: "I asked one of my officers, I think he is coded as Adam, to try to find out what was going on, and he walked into the Tube station and told me that the subject had been shot."
Yesterday another surveillance officer admitted he failed to film Mr de Menezes walking past his van because he was urinating at the time. But the officer insisted he had not neglected his duties. The inquest continues.
