Police chief singled out over De Menezes shooting

By James Macintyre

Two years after police shot dead the innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes, it finally appeared that some criticism would be levelled at the authorities last night, after the apparent leak of an official report into the incident.

It was reported that the Independent Police Complaints Commission would today single out Andy Hayman, the head of counter-terrorism and intelligence, for being deliberately misleading about events surrounding the shooting, which took place after the July 7 suicide bombings in London and a failed attempt two weeks later.

The Guardian said Sir Ian Blair will escape serious censure from the investigation - “Stockwell2″ - because he was not told about the incident until the morning after it happened. In that time Mr Hayman had overseen a process in which police maintained for hours they had shot a “terrorist”.

Mr Hayman is apparently accused of not passing on to Mr Blair doubts that were emerging about whether the victim was a genuine terrorist target. It was only 24 hours after the shooting that police admitted De Menezes was innocent.

The Stockwell shooting could yet turn into one of the great public scandals of the decade. Initially, police - who blacked out elements of the CCTV footage - claimed that de Menezes was in a bulky coat and sprinted over the underground barrier. These claims turned out to be false.

One officer was urinating by De Menezes’s block of flats while he emerged, to be followed by officers on to a bus, the Tube and down into Stockwell station, where he was shot seven times in the head at point blank range.

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