'They placed their pistols against Jean Chales de Menezes's head and fired seven times'

Sean O'Neill
London Times
Tuesday October 02, 2007

Jean Charles de Menezes seemed to be in no hurry as he sauntered through the ticket hall at Stockwell Underground station. He was wearing a light blue denim jacket, a black T-shirt, jeans and a pair of trainers. He was not carrying a bag.

Seeing a stack of free newspapers, he picked one up before going through the ticket barriers and on towards the escalator to the Northern Line platforms.

These pictures of an easy-going young man on his way to work were the first images shown to the jury yesterday at the opening of the Old Bailey trial of the Metropolitan Police force.

A few minutes after they were recorded on closed-circuit television cameras on the morning of July 22, 2005, Mr de Menezes was lying dead on a train.

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He met his death when one police officer, thinking that he was a suicide bomber, held him down as two others ran on to the train, pressed their Glock 9mm pistols to his head and fired seven bullets into his brain.

“Two firearms officers, who I will refer to as C2 and C12, leant over Ivor [a member of the surveillance team] and placed their Glock 9mm pistols against Jean Charles’s head and fired. He was shot seven times in the head and died immediately,” said Clare Montgomery, QC, as she publicly outlined for the first time a detailed account of how Mr de Menezes came to be shot dead.

A picture of his body, recorded by a police cameraman, was shown to the court. Mr de Menezes was shown lying on his side, his back to the camera. One arm was visible, the other was draped over the front of his body.

His jacket was now gathered up from his waist, revealing the bare flesh of his lower back. There were no wires, no rucksack, no bomb.

In the minutes between the recording of these two starkly contrasting images, dramatic events unfolded at Stockwell station.

The CCTV footage showed Mr de Menezes enter the station closely followed by police surveillance officers identified by the code names Ivor, Ken, Laurence and Malcolm.

Mr de Menezes was unaware that he was being tailed as he descended to the Tube platform. The man directly behind him on the staircase was Ivor. A train pulled in and the surveillance team boarded the same carriage as Mr de Menezes.

The warning beeps sounded, but the carriage doors did not close and the train sat by the platform for a minute or more. In that time, police firearms team arrived at Stockwell and was picked up on the station cameras running through the ticket hall.

The officers descended the escalator at a run and were clearly picked out by the cameras. A woman in a pink top turns quickly, looking alarmed, as the men rushed past her. Miss Montgomery said: “Some had pulled police caps on, they were shouting loudly and carrying obvious weapons as they clattered down the escalator.”

The firearms officers ran on to the platform and towards the waiting train. Ivor was the first of the surveillance team to react, moving to the door and shouting, “He’s here”, to the officers.

Miss Montgomery said: “As the armed officers entered the train Jean Charles stood up. He was grabbed by a surveillance officer, Ivor, and pushed back on to his seat.” Then the two firearms officers shot him.

Screaming erupted in the carriage as other passengers panicked. There was confusion among the police officers too. One of the armed police officers grabbed Ivor and hauled him to the ground.

“He was dragged along the floor of the carriage by a firearms officer with a long-barrelled weapon — possibly a machinegun,” Miss Montgomery said. “Ivor shouted that he was a police officer and held out his hands. The officer dragged him on to the platform and levelled his weapon at Ivor’s chest.”

The police also turned their attention on the train driver who, frightened for his life, jumped from his cab and ran into the tunnel, pursued by armed officers.

Miss Montgomery told the jury: “You may think that the fact that police ended up pointing a gun at another policeman and mistaking a terrorised train driver for a bomber gives you a clue as to just how far wrong the operation had gone.”