Police 'failings' led to Menezes death

A senior surveillance officer has admitted that "failings" by the Metropolitan Police led to Jean Charles de Menezes being shot dead.

The Scotland Yard officer, known by the code name James, said the innocent Brazilian electrician could have been stopped safely before he was gunned down by marksmen at Stockwell Tube station, south London.

He told the inquest into Mr de Menezes' death that his bosses "took too long" in telling his officers whether they should stop him 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 have stopped the Brazilian electrician.

Sir Michael Wright, the coroner, 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 the bus at Stockwell, he said the operation room were taking "too long" to tell him whether he should stop Mr de Menezes.

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 ten 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 then 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, 27, was shot seven times in the head after being mistaken for failed suicide bomber Hussain Osman on July 22, 2005.

He was tracked by surveillance 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."

On Monday, a surveillance officer, named by the code name Frank, admitted he failed to film de Menezes walking past his van because he was urinating at the time.

But the officer, who was serving a temporary spell at New Scotland Yard from the Armed Forces, insisted he had not neglected his duties.

He said he still managed to get a good look at Mr de Menezes leaving his flat in Tulse Hill, south London.

The marksmen - identified as C2 and C12 - who shot dead Mr de Menezes are due to give evidence in public for the first time later in the inquest.

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