Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

High Court rejects Jean Charles de Menezes family appeal

Paul Stuart | 21.12.2006 17:05 | Repression | London

On December 14, three High Court Judges unanimously rejected demands for a full investigation into the decision of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to rule out criminal prosecutions of the police officers who shot dead Jean Charles de Menezes at a London Underground station on July 22, 2005.

The action had been brought by Jean Charles’s family.

After a two-day hearing, the judges unanimously upheld the CPS decision that there was insufficient evidence to press charges and dismissed the case “on all grounds.”

Only days before, the press reported that Metropolitan Police chief Sir Ian Blair had been officially cleared of misconduct charges over the murder of Jean Charles.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) was tasked to investigate complaints made by the family about false statements Blair made in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, in which he claimed Jean Charles had been killed after disobeying orders to stop. But according to press reports, the IPCC has written privately to Ian Blair advising him that there is no evidence that he deceived the public.

Jean Charles was the victim of a “shoot to kill” policy, Operation Kratos, secretly adopted by police in 2003. Following the July 7, 2005, terror bombings in London, police seized the opportunity to put this policy into deadly effect.

On the morning of July 22, Jean Charles was covertly trailed by plainclothes officers after the block of flats in which he lived had been placed under surveillance. Despite subsequent police claims that Jean Charles had been positively identified as a terrorist suspect, no attempt was made to detain him en route to the underground station. Indeed, Jean Charles had no warning of the imminent danger to his life until several plainclothes armed officers grabbed him as he entered the train, pinned him to his chair and fired seven bullets at point-blank range into his head.

For hours after this brutal shooting, senior police officers described Jean Charles as a suicide bomber who had resisted arrest, even though police quickly established that the young Brazilian was innocent of any crime. Media reports regurgitated police claims that Jean Charles had been wearing a heavy coat—supposedly to hide a suicide belt—and had leapt over a ticket barrier as he sought to evade capture.

As all these claims were revealed to be lies, a cover-up went into operation. On July 17 of this year, the CPS ruled out any prosecution of the officers involved in Jean Charles’s shooting, claiming there was “insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction.”

The CPS announced that it would instead bring charges against the Metropolitan Police under Section Three of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 for failing to provide for “the health, safety and welfare” of Jean Charles de Menezes. The decision is profoundly insulting to the family of Jean Charles. The worst punishment is a financial fine on the Metropolitan Police that would be borne by the taxpayer. On September 19, the police appealed against this paltry decision.

Prior to the two-day judicial review, a spokesperson for the de Menezes family set out the principled basis for their legal action. “The Met’s organisational failure and flawed tactics led to Jean’s death.... But within the Met, individuals devised the shoot-to-kill policy, individuals ordered Jean’s killing and individuals shot the seven bullets in his head. We are bringing this challenge because we believe that individuals should bear responsibility for this crime. Otherwise a message is sent out that police officers can kill with impunity.”

In the High Court, Michael Mansfield QC, for Jean Charles’s family, accused the CPS of “usurping the role of a jury.” The CPS decision not to prosecute was a violation of Article Two of the European Convention on Human Rights, he argued, which protected the right to life and also required an adequate trial or inquiry to “deter life-endangering conduct in future.”

Lawyers argued that there was enough evidence to bring charges of homicide against the officers involved and those who made the decision to shoot. In a written argument to the High Court, they insisted there was “prime facie evidence that the officers were lying” about what happened before the fatal shooting.

The court dismissed the family’s lawyer’s accusations of a cover-up organised by the CPS, stating, “There has been no suggestion and we have seen nothing to support a suggestion that the exercise was approached with any predisposition as to the outcome or that there was anything other than a fair and even-handed review of the case.”

In a written judgment, the court also declared that there had been no violation of human rights. Lord Justice Richards ruled it was a “reasonable” decision for the Director of Public Prosecutions and the CPS not to order prosecutions because they were “likely” to fail.

The CPS expressed its satisfaction with the ruling. Jonathan Crow QC, for the CPS, had argued, “The fact that something went terribly wrong does not mean there is necessarily any individual criminal culpability.” He added that the family’s insistence that its human rights had been denied was “unsustainable.”

With few exceptions, the High Court ruling went unreported in the British press.

Outside the court, Jean Charles’s cousin, Patricia Armani da Silva, said the family’s battle “will never stop.” She continued, “Today is a sad day for my family. I am heartbroken. We believe the judges came to the wrong decision,” she added. “We were shocked to hear all the new evidence that was revealed in court over the two-day hearing. We heard how the police made mistake after mistake on the day they killed my cousin.” She added: “We will continue fighting for justice until someone is held responsible for my cousin’s murder.”

The High Court’s ruling not only elevates the police above the rule of law. It provides the legal framework to justify future state sanctioned murders.

Paul Stuart
- Homepage: http://wsws.org/articles/2006/dec2006/mene-d21.shtml

Comments

Display the following 2 comments

  1. Absolutely Disgraceful — Charity Sweet
  2. English Policing and Justice — Racist
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech