I covered the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes and saw horrific cop blunders… you MUST watch harrowing Disney drama
A CLIMATE of fear and loathing gripped London early on 22 July 2005 – and nowhere more so than at New Scotland Yard.
Four would-be suicide bombers – who had tried to blow up the capital’s public transport system on the previous day – remained at large and panic was palpable across the city.
And there was genuine loathing for the “b*****ds” who came within a whisker of emulating the terrorists who killed 52 innocent people on three tube trains and a bus a fortnight earlier.
Just after 10am that morning, the mood among the Metropolitan Police changed to one of jubilation when a man believed at the time to be one of the 21/7 bombers on the run, was shot dead.
Two firearms officers put seven bullets in the suspect’s head on a northbound Victoria Line train at Stockwell tube station.
By the end of the day, however, the atmosphere in the corridors at New Scotland Yard had turned positively funereal as it dawned on everyone but Commissioner Sir Ian Blair that an innocent man had become the 53rd victim of the July 2005 attacks.
Only this time, it was the Met who was responsible for the killing after mistaking 27-year-old Brazilian electrician Jean Charles De Menezes for one of the bombers.
The fatal shooting was the result of a disastrous surveillance operation and was followed by an equally shambolic damage limitation exercise by the Met.
A haunting new four-part television drama – Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles De Menezes – is being streamed on Disney+ next week.
The recreation of Jean Charles’ shooting, and the flawed surveillance operation preceding it, are brought to the screen in harrowing detail.
Jean Charles’ mother, Maria De Menezes, says everyone should watch the dramatisation of her son’s death, despite feeling ill for three days after watching the show.
I covered the story of Jean Charles’ death on the day and attended subsequent legal hearings and inquiries over the next seven years for The Sun, and could not agree more with Mrs De Menezes.
The first two episodes of the programme left me numb with shock and sadness.
A million words on paper could not capture the humanity of the tragedy so powerfully encapsulated in the hour-long programmes by creator Jeff Pope.
The utter chaos of the police surveillance operation is illuminated in jaw-dropping detail, along with the crass and misleading initial attempts by the Met to minimise their mistake.
When Jean Charles was executed by the state, I was on the tube heading to New Scotland Yard where I planned to ‘plot up’ with other crime reporters in one of the nearby coffee bars at St James’ Park station.
There was a delay on the Victoria Line and by the time I arrived my phone was red hot with messages from the newsdesk about an incident at Stockwell underground station.
Crime reporters from the national media had spent most of the past two weeks loitering around New Scotland Yard, in the hope of unofficial updates from contacts and being in position for official briefings on the investigation into the 7/7 attacks.
The programme starts with the 7/7 attacks before moving to a dingy flat at in North London, where the 21/7 gang were preparing their bombs under the direction of Muktar Said Ibrahim.
Life was beginning to return to normal on 21 July when a flood of calls came into The Sun’s newsroom about a series of explosions on the tube network and a bus between 11.30am and noon.
Mercifully, the four bombs – a fifth had been discarded by another bomber who lost his nerve – had not detonated the main ‘Mother of Satan’ TATP explosives.
The programme focuses on Jean Charles’ own reaction to the terrorist incidents who is brought to life by Brazilian actor Edison Alcaide, in his first major role.
Jean Charles is shown to be a hard-working young man carrying out jobs on sites by day and working at a restaurant on the night before his death.
Because of his late finish, Jean Charles was not due to start his day job until later but with fateful timing, his boss asked him to start work.
Stockwell shooting timeline
2005
July 7 – four suicide bombers kill 52 people in London
July 21 – four terrorists fail to detonate explosives in London
July 22 – 9.33am surveillance officers see Jean Charles de Menezes leave a block of flats in South London, thinking he is terror suspect Hussen Osman
10.01am – Jean Charles enters Stockwell tube station
10.04am – ‘State Red’ declared meaning firearms officer ordered to stop the suspect
10.05am – Armed officers confront and shoot Jean Charles
4pm – Met Commissioner Sir Ian Blair tells a press conference the Stockwell shooting was “directly linked” to the attempted bombing.
5pm – The police admit the victim was not linked to terrorism.
July 27 – Four of Jean Charles’s cousins, pictured above, demand an end to the “shoot-to-kill” policy.
August 16 – ITV reveals details of Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) investigation that contradict the Met’s version of events.
2006
July 15 – It is revealed that no one will be charged with the murder or manslaughter of Jean Charles.
2007
November 1 – The Met Police Commissioner and his office were found guilty of health and safety offences and fined £175,000.
2008
December 12 – A coroner’s inquest records an open verdict on Jean Charles’s death.
2009
November 23 – The Met agrees to pay £100,000 in compensation to Jean Charles’s family.
The small block where he lived was being kept under surveillance that morning in what police then believed was their first major breakthrough in tracking down the 21/7 bombers.
A gym card belonging to one of the terrorists, Hussein Osman, was found in a rucksack containing his bomb at Shepherd’s Bush tube station, along with a cut-up wedding photograph.
In another unfortunate coincidence, Osman had not even provided his real address to the gym but had given one belonging to an associate at the Scotia Road block, where Jean Charles lived in another flat.
SHOOT-TO-KILL POLICY
A lone soldier was sitting in a van outside Scotia Road and watching the communal front door in case Osman showed himself.
The soldier was urinating into a bottle and missed Jean Charles as he came through the door at 9.33am. From that moment on, the operation never recovered.
Firearms officers were supposed to have been there at the time but were running late after being briefed at their base that Operation Kratos – a shoot-to-kill policy designed to thwart suicide bombers – was engaged.
Jean Charles was dark-haired and had olive skin, while Hussein was North African, but Met surveillance officers waiting near the flats were unable to identify or rule him out as the bomber.
The programme shows the countdown to disaster continuing as Jean Charles boards a bus – where he could have been stopped, and gets off at Brixton tube station.
The station was shut because of a security alert and Jean Charles then caught another bus to Stockwell.
The surveillance officers kept pace with Jean Charles but were unable to get a face-on view over concerns it might spook him and he could potentially trigger a bomb.
The programme captures the confusion of the surveillance perfectly.
Jean Charles is described by his watchers as “very, very jumpy” while one the SO12 officers says: “For what it’s worth, I think it’s him.”
Yet another officer definitively says: “It’s not him.” But frustratingly, that message was never passed on by the surveillance team leader to control.
Commander Dick – later to become Met commissioner and be awarded a damehood – was desperate for CO19 officers to carry out the stop.
She asks the tailing officers what percentage they would give for a positive identification of the bomber.
To their credit, the surveillance officers decline to reply and Dick then decides to wait until the suspect has alighted from the bus before stopping him.
And that’s what Jean Charles did outside Stockwell tube station before using his ticket to go through a barrier.
Jean Charles is shown heading down the escalator as Dick tells the team: “He can’t be allowed to get on the train.”
But Jean Charles does get on the train and surveillance officers follow him, one of them sidling up in the seat next to him.
Meanwhile, the CO19 firearms officers wearing body armour have finally arrived at the station and are seen vaulting barriers with guns drawn and running down the escalator.
Watching the events unfold almost 20 years later, it is still shocking and defies logic when you realise what is about to happen.
HORROR UNFOLDED
The time is 10.06am and without any warning the surveillance officer suddenly pulls Jean Charles down and the gun cops – code-named Charlie 1 and 2 – pump seven shots into his head and one in his shoulder.
It is the most shocking thing I have ever witnessed on a television screen but the real power of the programme is in its compassion for Jean Charles and his family.
Some senior officers knew that a wallet and mobile phone had been found suggesting the man they had shot was a Brazilian national named Jean Charles De Menezes.
But Commissioner Sir Ian Blair told us at a press conference held later that afternoon that the shooting is “directly linked to the ongoing and expanding anti-terrorist operation.”
Inaccurately, he added: “As I understand the situation, the man was challenged and refused to obey police instructions.”
Watching the events unfold almost 20 years later, it is still shocking and defies logic to realise what is about to happen.
The Met would go on to compound the errors of the operation, notably releasing computer graphics to show the face of Jean Charles morphing into the darker-skinned one of bomber Osman.
They also released mistaken eyewitness accounts wrongly claiming that Jean Charles was wearing bulky clothing, had behaved suspiciously and had vaulted the barriers at Stockwell station.
Ultimately, the London force would salvage its reputation by doing what it does best – catching baddies.
Within a week of Jean Charles’ shooting, they had rounded up the 21/7 gang. Their leader Ibrahim Muktar Said was captured with Ramzi Mohamed when the SAS stormed a flat in North Kensington.
The Met would later be fined £175,000 for health and safety failings in the bungled operation which led to Jean Charles’ death.
However, to the anger of Jean Charles’ family and supporters, none of the officers involved ever faced disciplinary action.
There won’t be too many days when those officers don’t think of Jean Charles. But they owe it to Mrs De Menezes to watch the new drama, no matter how painful the memories may be.
- Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles De Menezes is on Disney+ from 30 April.