The Clapham Massacre

Choose the judge; choose the verdict. That is how it is done when they want a result. Of course they have almost totally unlimited discretion when it comes to not prosecuting. That was how it worked with the Al Yamamah Job.

It was also how they did it when they tried to put Clive Ponting in prison using Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911, a disgraceful piece of legislation. That judge, a thug called McCowan over played his hand,  the jury didn't swallow it so Clive walked. The judge didn't get his promotion.

This time the objective was making sure that the copper got away with it. They succeeded because the jury was screwed. They weren't fooled by the evidence. The coroner told them to ignore police perjury and if it was that obvious it had to be gross. This report from Private Eye 1226/7 reads as though the reporter sat through the inquest and knows what happened. The main stream media are in cover up mode. This is not unusual.
PS The wonderful people at the World Socialist Web Site do not believe the police either.

DE MENEZES INQUEST
DESPITE the efforts of the coroner to gag the jurors deciding the inquest into the 2005 police shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent going about his daily business, they still managed to deliver a damning indictment of police conduct that day.

In doing so, the ordinary men and women of London showed how crucial  it is to the justice system that deaths at the hands of state (or indeed while in state care or custody) are subject to detailed public scrutiny and accountability. But if ministers have their way, they will soon legislate to hold some inquests in private on the grounds of national security. It's easy to see how an inquiry into a badly bungled anti-terrorist police operation could end up taking place behind closed doors. If the powers are there, the police will use them.

The government tried to sneak through the measure to remove juries, relatives and the public from certain sensitive cases in the detail of the counter-terrorism bill but dropped it in the face of opposition. But it will certainly resurface in the new law to reform the coroners' service, announced in the Queen's speech - thereby undoing recent advances (thanks to human rights legislation) that have substantially widened the scope of inquests to inquire into all circumstances surrounding a death and allow juries to make detailed findings in a "narrative" verdict that enables lessons to be learned that might prevent tragic events being repeated.

Indeed, in the De Menezes inquest, coroner Sir Michael Wright allowed a pretty full exploration into the wider aspects surrounding the death. But then - some might argue cynically - he not only restricted the verdicts available to the jury (allowing only a lawful killing or an open verdict), but he also prevented them making that all-important narrative verdict. Instead he allowed only "yes" or "no" answers to 12 set questions - it was this second constraint (not the decision over unlawful killing verdicts) which was the final straw, prompting the walk-out by the family's lawyers.

Unlawful killing verdicts in such cases are always difficult. Following court rulings in other police fatal shootings, such as that of Harry Stanley who was shot by police who mistook a table leg in a carrier bag for a gun (Eyes passim), officers cannot be held responsible if it is their "honest belief' that a person posed an immediate threat - even if the victim clearly, like Mr de Menezes, posed no threat. Thus it was unlikely, though not impossible, that the jury would have returned an unlawful killing verdict against the two men who shot Mr de Menezes, even if they had been allowed to.

However, the jurors' responses to the coroner's 12 questions suggested that had they been allowed to, they might have brought in a "gross negligence manslaughter" (ie unlawful killing) verdict to reflect the litany of police operational failings from the beginning of the surveillance of Mr de Menezes to the final seconds before officers fired seven bullets at point-blank range into his head.

Their replies to those limited questions made it clear they believed a series of omissions and failures by police had contributed. Police hadn't bothered to get better photographs of the real suspect, Hussain Osman, even though they were available; those in charge did not know where the armed-response units were (one should have been outside the block of flats where Osman and the hapless Mr de Menezes lived); there was a lack of communication which meant those in charge thought there had been a positive identification when there had not; there was a failure to stop Mr de Menezes before he reached first a bus, then a Tube station (where a real terrorist would have posed the greatest threat); and, crucially, commanders ignored a request from a surveillance officer that they detain Mr de Menezes in the ticketing hallway of the station. (The officer, known as "Ivor", told the jury that he and his colleague could have done this with minimum use of force.)

But the coroner could have asked another dozen questions and got equally damning answers about the failure to staff and resource the operation properly; the failure to brief firearms officers about the risk of mistaken identity; the failure to carry out a proper recce of the area to determine where a suspect would be most safely stopped; the failure to ensure radio equipment was working, etc.

A verdict of gross negligence manslaughter can only be brought if an individual or individuals are responsible for a series of errors or if there is a systemic failure - not if different people get different things wrong. But lawyers for the family alleged that there was indeed a series of serious failings by each of the three people in command of the operation that could justify such a finding - deputy assistant commissioner John McDowell (the "gold" commander on the day), DAC Cressida Dick (the senior designated officer) and her tactical adviser, chief inspector Vince Esposito.

By so restricting the jurors' room for manoeuvre, it meant that when they delivered their findings, though they clearly believed Scotland Yard had been at fault, no one individual could be held accountable.

From his summing-up, it is clear that Sir Michael Wright sympathised greatly with the officers who shot Mr de Menezes. He told the jury to put aside emotion and deal with facts - but then, when considering the stark contrast between the accounts of the civilian witnesses on the Tube and those of the firearms officers, he suggested the jury might recall how a tough, fit and highly trained officer broke down in tears to "assist you in assessing the depth of the emotional experience that he was going through". He even suggested that if the jury decided the officers were lying, about for example shouting a warning before opening fire (rejected by the jury), it might be in order to "mitigate the impact of what might be a ... tragic mistake". Usually lying on oath is considered to be perjury and is frowned upon whatever the circumstances.