UK: Met police guilty over tube shooting
The Metropolitan Police was today found guilty of breaching health and safety laws over the shooting of innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes.
The 27-year-old died following a “catastrophic” series of errors in the operation which ended in his death.
He was shot seven times by specialist firearms officers at Stockwell Tube station after being mistaken for failed suicide bomber Hussain Osman.
Prosecutors at the Old Bailey set out 19 alleged failings in the police operation in the hours leading up to the shooting on July 22, 2005.
The jury convicted the force on the second day of its deliberations.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair was in court to hear the verdict.
The force now faces an unlimited fine, but has indicated it will appeal.
Further to the verdict, the jury cleared the officer in charge of the operation which led to the shooting, Cressida Dick of personal responsibility.
The foreman told the court: “In reaching this verdict the jury attaches no personal culpability to Commander Dick.”
Ronald Thwaites QC, representing the Met, had told the jury Mr de Menezes was acting in an “aggressive and threatening manner” when challenged by officers.
However, campaigners reacted angrily to the way police defended the case, accusing them of a “sickening” attempt to blacken Mr de Menezes’s name.
There was also a bitter courtroom battle over prosecution claims that a composite image of the Brazilian victim and Osman, produced by the defence, had been doctored to make them look more alike.
The trial and investigation is estimated to have cost around £3.5m (€5.04m) in public money but it was nearly derailed after an armed police raid on the home of a juror’s ex-boyfriend in the second week of the case, in which the female juror’s baby was taken away.
The Met Commissioner, Ian Blair, whose office was on trial during the case, said before it started that he feared a guilty verdict would have a “profound” impact on policing throughout the UK.
