Met chief tried to stop shooting inquiry
Britain’s top police officer, the Scotland Yard commissioner Sir Ian Blair, attempted to stop an independent external investigation into the shooting of a young Brazilian mistaken for a suicide bomber, it emerged yesterday.
Sir Ian wrote to John Gieve, the permanent secretary at the Home Office, on July 22, the morning Jean Charles de Menezes was shot at short range on the London tube. The commissioner argued for an internal inquiry into the killing on the grounds that the ongoing anti-terrorist investigation took precedence over any independent look into his death.
According to senior police and Whitehall sources, Sir Ian was concerned that an investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission could impact on national security and intelligence. He was also understood to be worried that an outside investigation would damage the morale of CO19, the elite firearms section working under enormous pressure.
Well that settles it then.
It’s time that Sir Ian Blair tendered his resignation.
Hopefully you are not holding your breath. Accountability for proven mistakes is an excellent idea, which most people support except when it comes to themselves. And the more important the post the person concerns holds, the less likely accountability is going to be demanded successfully.
When it comes to people called Blair resigning for being economical with the truth, I suspect that Sir Ian will be able to find a precedent to hide behind.
A bunch of gun-toting Daily Mail readers, with revenge in their eyes and a tendency to pre-judge suspects, were over-excited and trigger-happy at their own importance and then given the orders ‘shoot to kill’!!!
What did we really expect from a police force with such an awful record of past incompetence? We forget the police are just self important council workers, but far more dangerous!
Just look at how the rank and file are resisting the changes proposed by the Stephen Lawrence inquiry. Nothing has changed and I too have little faith in seeing any prosecutions or resignations as a result of this. The police are above the law!
Why Ian Blair should not resign, and why perhaps he should
Sir Ian Blair should not resign because of what he said at the press briefing following the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes on 22 July, even if it turns out that what he said was untruthful. However, he should resign if the shoot to kill policy wa…