On getting in wrong

Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police chief won't resign because, as he says, difficult things have happened on every police commissioner's watch. He is very sorry for what has happened, that is the whole tragedy surrounding the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell tube station. But it was the Force in the wrong not him personally. In that he may well be right.

However, the Independendent Police Complaints Commission says today that Sir Ian "attempted to prevent us" from getting on with the enquiry. He says not. They say, as does the solicitor for the de Menezes family, that "17 witnesses said they had not heard police shout a clear warning before firing". Sir Ian maintains otherwise.

The trouble with all this is that there may not be a smoking gun, but there is certainly a smelly rag in the middle of all this. It will keep up the smell until somebody extinguishes it. I don't see much point in getting at Ian Blair, I don't see much point in any more enquiries. Yes, the truth has been sullied, but until honour is restored back into public life, our police service, government institutions and lawmakers will be dancing around playing the blame game for all it is worth.

That the tragedy has happened is appalling in itself, but given that, the only person to be well out of all this is Jean Charles himself. Cut down in his prime, villified in death as a cocaine addict and the rest by certain media hacks, his name will live on as a symbol of how wrong we can get it in this world. Yes, the innocent do suffer for the guilty. I do not know how Jean Charles got on after his entry through the Pearly Gates, but he will be with others now. And maybe he has a full understanding before him of the truth of it all!

Posted in: Ian Blair,Stockwell shooting