Stockwell tube shooting returns to haunt Met
A new Disney+ drama is set to reopen the controversy over the killing by police of Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005
The opening of the BBC’s smash-hit series Line of Duty begins with an unarmed, innocent man being misidentified and shot by anti-terrorist police.
DS Arnott, played by Martin Compston, refuses to help cover up police culpability in this tragedy, marking him out as candidate for Supt Ted Hastings’ anti-corruption unit AC-12. This moment sets us up for six series of brilliant duplicity and suspense.
This inciting storyline, along with all the instances of corruption featured in writer Jed Mercurio’s riveting series, was based on real events. In this case it was the police shooting, 20 years ago this summer, of young Brazilian man Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell tube station.
Mercurio’s use of real police cover-ups and wrongdoing to add impact to his drama was the theme of my most recent book, The Real Ted Hastings. The showrunner and writer had been explicit in his aim to make his cop show hard-hitting in its relevance.
Mercurio originally had no plans to write a police drama at all – until he began following the de Menezes case. ‘What was interesting to me about that tragedy,’ he said, ‘was not only that the mistake occurred, but what followed was an institutionalised effort to cover up the truth.’
Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes
The drama would be all about how that institution dealt with its errors and bent officers.
No doubt news that another distinguished British screenwriter, Jeff Pope, is about to scrutinise the de Menezes case again in a new four-part drama will have Met chiefs grinding their teeth.
Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes – on Disney+ – will explicitly deal with the case and its aftermath.
First, let’s remember the facts. On Friday 22 July 2005 Jean Charles de Menezes was shot by police officers at Stockwell underground station following an anti-terrorist surveillance operation.
At the time, London was on high alert following the terrorist bombing of the London transport system on 7 July 2005, which killed 52 people, and the failed attacks on the transport system on 21 July 2005.
The very next day after the second attempted attack, 22 July, police were watching a block of flats in Tulse Hill, where it was believed one of the failed bombers was living. It is thought de Menezes, a resident there, came out of the communal entrance and was mistaken for the terrorist.
He was followed as he took a bus to Brixton tube, which was closed, then onto Stockwell station and was allowed to enter the tube station.
Confused and rushed operation
If he was a suspected terrorist, why was he not stopped in the street before he could endanger anyone on the transport network? Why was he allowed to enter the tube? Why did the operation continue despite the fact that he was not positively identified by any surveillance officers.
In a feature that Pope wrote in The Observer recently, his anger shone through over how this disaster was handled. He describes the surveillance operation as confused and rushed, and is dismayed by the response of Cressida Dick, the officer in charge of it, who was later promoted to become Met Commissioner.
At the inquest she refused to say any mistakes had been made.
While London’s police and security services were on high alert at this time (the bombers were all still on the loose), the Met’s disinformation after the shooting was unforgivable.
It was suggested de Menezes was wearing bulky clothing that could have hidden a bomb (he was wearing a denim jacket), that he had behaved suspiciously, that when he was challenged he refused to obey.
An undercover officer was even sent to check up on a public meeting of the Justice for Jean campaign. This was a tactic used against the family of murder victim Stephen Lawrence, and others, too.
You have to wonder what the authorities hope to achieve by spying on victims. Dirt with which to smear them?
In his Observer article, Pope, who won a Bafta for his drama about the Moors Murders, See No Evil, writes, ‘The point of this drama is to tell the truth. To dispel the myths about what happened that day, and afterwards.’
A starry cast – Daniel Mays, Russell Tovey, Max Beesley, Emily Mortimer, Alex Jennings – along with the controversial subject matter are likely to create a lot of focus on this drama.
The Met hierarchy will no doubt be hoping its impact will be somewhere short of last year’s fact-based agenda-setting drama, Mr Bates vs The Post Office.
Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes is available on Disney+ from 30 April