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Menezes control room 'not noisy' Menezes chief explains decisions
(about 3 hours later)
The officer in charge of Scotland Yard operations on the day Jean Charles de Menezes was shot has denied claims the control room was "noisy and chaotic". The officer in charge of police who shot Jean Charles de Menezes says she was told five times by officers that he was 21 July bomb plotter Hussain Osman.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick was responding at the Old Bailey to claims that officers had to shout to make themselves heard in room 1600. Brazilian Mr de Menezes, 27, was killed on a train at London's Stockwell Tube station after he was followed because he was wrongly identified as Osman.
Mr de Menezes, 27, was killed after being wrongly identified as one of the 21 July London bomb plotters. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick told the Old Bailey why she asked armed officers to stop Mr Menezes.
The Metropolitan Police denies breaking health and safety laws on 22 July 2005.The Metropolitan Police denies breaking health and safety laws on 22 July 2005.
Brazilian Mr de Menezes, 27, was shot seven times in the head on a train at London's Stockwell Tube station on that day, after being wrongly identified as 21 July bomb plotter Hussain Osman.
DAC Dick, who has since been promoted, was the commander in charge of overall operations on that day.DAC Dick, who has since been promoted, was the commander in charge of overall operations on that day.
'Calm and quiet' She told jurors on Thursday that a surveillance team had been deployed to Scotia Road, south London - an address linked to Osman - that morning.
Clare Montgomery QC, prosecuting, has told the jury that the "noisy" atmosphere in the 16th floor nerve centre "could not have helped the decision-making process". Mr de Menezes was later followed by police, who believed him to be Osman, from a block of flats on Scotia Road to Stockwell Tube station, where he was shot seven times in the head on the train.
The early part of the day, it was really very calm and quiet Cressida DickDeputy assistant commissioner 'Public safety'
DAC Dick, speaking in court on the first day of the Met's defence case, said: "I would not describe it ever as noisy. DAC Dick told the court she had been told three times by a surveillance officer on the scene, codenamed Pat, and twice by her "silver" commander that the man officers had been following was Osman.
"The early part of the day, it was really very calm and quiet." The behaviours that were described - the nervousness, agitation, the sending of messages, the telephone, getting on and off the bus - added to the picture of someone potentially intent on causing an explosion DAC Dick
She said that later there were people in the room who were not "absolutely required". Speaking on the first day of the Met's defence case, she said she believed Mr de Menezes had to be stopped from getting on the Underground "for public safety reasons".
She said this had made the room hotter and "more difficult for people to move around", and so she had asked them to leave. Asked by the judge why she had acted without "100% positive identification", she replied: "I believed that they [officers at the scene] believed it was him but also that they could be wrong."
But this was after the shooting of Mr de Menezes, she added. She said her handling of the situation had been proportionate.
DAC Dick said she had been paged at 0100 on the morning of the shooting - the day after the 21 July attempted bombings - to say things had been "moving quickly during the night" and that she should be at work at 0700. DAC Dick added: "Firstly, I believe that the surveillance team believed it was him.
She told the Old Bailey she had arrived at Scotland Yard at 0530 and had read police documents on potential suicide bombers and firearms before going to the control room at 0700. "Secondly, from the behaviours that had been described to me - given that I thought they thought it was him - it could, very, very well be him.
Trap fears "The behaviours that were described - the nervousness, agitation, the sending of messages, the telephone, getting on and off the bus - added to the picture of someone potentially intent on causing an explosion."
She said that, in the control room, she was told a surveillance team had already been deployed to Scotia Road, south London, an address linked to Osman. 'Very high risk'
Mr de Menezes was later followed by police, who believed him to be Osman, from a block of flats on Scotia Road to Stockwell Tube station, where he was shot dead. DAC Dick said that, earlier that day, she had seen CCTV footage of another 21 July suspect - Ramzi Mohammed - going down the escalator at Stockwell tube station before he had tried to detonate a bomb near Oval station.
DAC Dick told the court that officers were worried the address had been "booby-trapped" as an address in Spain had been after the 2004 Madrid bombings. "That all added up - I cannot be certain - to someone who posed potentially a very high risk to the public," DAC Dick told court.
"The particular example we talked about was the Madrid bombings in 2004 when, sadly at the end of the police operation, a number of people died including one police officer," she said. "The threat we were dealing with at that time was to the public transport system and to the Tube. We had two incidents - 7 July and 21 July."
They were also concerned the address could be a bomb factory with dangerous explosives inside, she added. Moments later, the SO19 specialist firearms team arrived at Stockwell Tube station.
She said that, because of the speed of developments, she had been unable to give face-to-face briefings to more senior commanders. "I then ordered 19 to do it," she told the court.
Parts of her handwritten log of events that day, written in the evening following the shooting, were read out to the court.
Her log recorded how Mr de Menezes had gone down the escalator into the Underground.
She wrote that he "must be detained and not allowed to travel on Tube for public safety reasons".
'No wires'
Another part of DAC Dick's log read: "Must be arrested by SO19. He is described as very jumpy and agitated. He has been on the phone and sending text messages."
It added: "If he were to enter [Stockwell station], I would have no contact with surveillance teams.
"However, he is not carrying anything, no wires visible. He is wearing denim, cannot rule out he is wearing secreted explosives or weapons."
DAC Dick wrote that she did "not think it right to allow such a subject to travel on the Tube".
Earlier on Thursday, DAC Dick denied claims the control room was "noisy and chaotic".
She was responding to prosecution claims that officers had to shout to make themselves heard in room 1600 - the 16th floor nerve centre at Scotland Yard.
The trial was adjourned until Friday.