Author wants to put record straight on de Menezes

Jean Charles de Menezes was mistaken for a terror suspect 20 years ago

A former police officer has written a book he hopes will "put the record straight" over the death of Jean Charles de Menezes.

The 27-year-old Brazilian electrician was killed by police outside Stockwell Tube station in south London on 22 July 2005, the day after failed bombing attempts on the city's transport network

Former Essex Police officer Steve Reynolds had just started a new job at the Independent Police Complaints Commission when the incident took place.

"First of all, Jean Charles was 100% innocent," he said.

"Secondly, notwithstanding that, the two officers who shot him really believed that he was a suicide bomber about to detonate the bomb at any moment.

"I think it's difficult to perhaps correlate those two extremes but I wanted to articulate that in the book."

The Metropolitan Police was fined £175,000 with £385,000 costs over the incident, for breaching health and safety laws. But no officers were prosecuted for the killing.

In April, the force reiterated its apology to the family, who said it was a "travesty" no officer was held accountable in the 20 years since his death.

Mr de Menezes' cousin, Patricia da Silva Armani, said: "He was a completely innocent man. And yet, he was shot in cold blood."

She added that it was "unacceptable that agents of the state can act with impunity".

Steve Reynolds was a senior investigator on the case

The former officer has been a consultant on a number of documentaries about the incident as well as a drama released on Disney+ in April called Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes.

His book is titled: The Met on Trial.

"It became clear to me the actual investigation was not being covered in any of those documentaries," he explained.

"I was also very keen to just set the record straight about what had happened, because there are so many misconceptions about what happened which are still around today.

"People still think that he was carrying a rucksack, that he was wearing bulky clothing, that he failed to respond to a police challenge, that he ran away... these are some of the misconceptions I wanted to put right."

Mr de Menezes' friends created a shrine after his death at Stockwell underground station

He explained the surveillance team misidentified Mr de Menezes as a suspect after he left his block of flats close to where the suicide bomber actually lived.

This caused a miscommunication with New Scotland Yard which led the control room to believe a positive identification had taken place, Mr Reynolds explained.

The incident itself took place two weeks after the 7/7 terror attacks, when 52 people were killed in central London.

Mr Reynolds said: "There were certainly organisational failings but those two officers genuinely believed the person they were confronting was a suicide bomber.

"They believed once again that this was a suicide bomber, like 7/7, about to detonate his bomb and kill many, many people.

"You can only imagine how distraught they were... Those two officers are also having their own flashbacks because I'm sure there can't be many days where they don't think about what happened 20 years ago."

Earlier this year, the Met Police said he was killed "at a time of unprecedented terrorist threat to London".

A spokesperson said the force had been subject to numerous public inquiries, including two separate reports by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (now the Independent Office for Police Conduct).

"No officer sets out on duty intent on ending a life. Our sole purpose is the complete opposite – the protection and preservation of life – and we have taken extensive action to address the causes of this tragedy," said the spokesperson.