A tragedy just waiting to happen
This was the first time I had attended the Jean Charles de Menezes inquest and the morning of the 21st started with the continued evidence of “James” the Bronze commander of the Grey surveillance team. This was the team that followed Jean Charles de Menezes from the time he got on a bus in Tulse Hill up until the moment he was shot by armed officers on the tube at Stockwell. I presumed that as one of the senior officers on the ground, James’ evidence would clarify the confusion of what had gone wrong that day but instead I was left with more questions than answers.
Why was such a poor image of Osmond used in the briefing if better ones were available?
Why was James apparently kept in the dark by the Ops room on important issues such as the appointment of a Silver Commander, current orders re SO12 and the position and status of the SO19 team?
Communication was obviously an issue as his answers highlighted more and more things of which he was unaware at the time. To start with I wondered why he had just not asked for clarification or information- especially about the SO19 team. Then it came out that he couldn’t ask them directly for their whereabouts as he didn’t have their number (farcical but true) and when he talked about the one and a half minutes he waited on the phone for Pat to answer the question on whether they should intercept their suspect- I began to understand why he wasn’t relying on the Ops room for answers.
I think the thing that scared me the most listening to the morning of evidence was that far from being an unforeseen catalogue of errors- this was a tragedy just waiting to happen. For example, I had read in the papers the other week about only one copy of the Osmond image being available to the team and presumed there had been a cock-up but according to James this is actually common practice! A surveillance team usually attempts to identify a suspect from memory alone- with the Bronze commander keeping one copy for them to refer to if necessary. Ridiculous as this sounds; there is apparently a very good reason- officers can’t be trusted not to lose any copy they might have. Apparently they would very likely lose their position on the team if this happened and therefore they don’t want to take the risk.
Another example is the lack of formalised language used to convey identification which must surely always present difficulties. Unless a suspect is completely discounted or positively identified, he remains a possible of some sort. In this case, semantics become vital and yet James struggled to remember if he had reported that “it is him” or “it could be him”- which would seem to me a very important distinction. He did suggest that if had known how this identification was going to be used, he might have changed his language but since he admitted he knew SO19 were on their way; he must have appreciated the danger of misidentification.
In general, I was left with the impression of an officer who feels no culpability and who was not concerned where the buck stopped as long as it wasn’t with him. I have a fear that if all the evidence is given in a similar manner, the buck will never stop with anyone.
Jo Easton
Justice4Jean Campaign Supporter
Labels: Comments from Supporters
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, 22 October 2008 at 15:56.
