Photos of a terror suspect arrived too late to stop the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, an inquest has heard.

Detective Inspector Kevin Southworth claimed police were only able to order copies of a driving licence belonging to failed bomber Hussain Osman "during office hours".

As a result the images did not arrive at New Scotland Yard until noon - almost two hours after Mr de Menezes was killed on July 22, 2005.

When asked why the pictures were not obtained quicker, Mr Southworth, a member of the SO13 anti-terror branch, said officers did not have out-of-hours contact with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA).

He said: "You could not just contact the DVLA directly. We had a dedicated point of contact which opened during office hours. We went to those people and they obtained the images as soon as possible."

There were also pictures of Osman available from immigration authorities, the inquest heard, but, as only hard copies existed, there was no way of obtaining them in time either.

Police shot the 27-year-old seven times in the head on a train carriage at Stockwell Tube, south London.

He had been mistaken for Osman, one of the terrorists behind the previous day's failed attacks on the capital.

Mr Southworth later confirmed a member of a local mosque raised suspicions that Osman "may have connections or be interested in terrorism" before the July 21 incident.

But he told a jury at the Oval cricket ground, south London, how he had been identified under a different name to police before the attack took place.

Last week, a police firearms chief admitted there was very little change to Scotland Yard's firearms training after the shooting.

Jurors were also told how Sir Ian Blair asked the then-prime minister Tony Blair to relax laws on officers confronting terror suspects just a day before the Stockwell shooting.

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