Menezes family sickened by further cover-up

from email, 14 October 2008:

The family of Jean Charles de Menezes were sickened to discover further cover up by police officers surrounding his death during today's evidence given at the inquest into Jean Charles' death.

An officer, known only as 'Owen' due to being successfully granted anonymity for the inquest, admitted to deleting a section of notes which would have been potentially vital evidence to any investigative proceedings.

'Owen', who was Deputy Surveillance Co-ordinator for the operation and was present in the operation control room working alongside senior officers including DAC Cressida Dick and D Supt Jon Boucher, wrote up detailed notes of his recollections shortly after Jean's death. These included details of conversations, decisions and commands given by senior officers during the final half hour of Jean's life before his fatal shooting.

The family today learnt that three lines of these original notes were deleted before submission and were not included in his statement or evidence given at the Health & Safety trial. The deleted section detailed disagreement between senior officers about whether to let Jean travel on tube or stop him as he entered Stockwell tube station. 'Owen's' original notes recalled Cressida Dick saying 'Let him run' but then being dissuaded by another senior officer that he should be stopped. This information contradicts the accounts given by senior officers and would clearly have been seen as damaging to the Metropolitan police.

The omission of this information is now likely to be investigated by the IPCC as potentially perverting the course of justice.

Giovani da Silva, Jean's brother, present in court today said:

'Clearly someone is lying. This is not the first time an officer has been found to have changed documentary evidence about the circumstances of my brother's death. This latest cover-up only increases suspicion about what officers were doing that day and whether they are telling the truth. We remain determined to uncover the truth".

[original article]

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