Ian Blair to be Quizzed Under Caution

[Wokeman]

Friday, March 17th, 2006
Brian Paddick, one of Britain’s most senior and controversial police officers, last night emerged as a key figure in the Stockwell shooting inquiry that is investigating the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Ian Blair.

Mr Paddick has given a statement to the Independent Police Complaints Commission which raises questions about the account given by Sir Ian, who has insisted that he was unaware that Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian man who was shot dead at a London tube station last July after being mistaken for a suicide bomber, was innocent until the day after the police opened fire.

Mr Paddick, a deputy assistant commissioner at Scotland Yard, has told the IPCC that fears surfaced inside Sir Ian’s office on the day of the killing on July 22 that the wrong man had been shot dead.
Sir Ian now faces questioning under criminal caution by the IPCC investigators. He has received a formal written warning, called a regulation nine notice, saying that he is under investigation for potential disciplinary offences.

Mr Paddick has told the inquiry that a member of Sir Ian’s personal staff suspected that the wrong man had been shot, hours after 27-year-old Mr de Menezes was killed by officers. He has based this on his recollection of a conversation he had with two close aides to the commissioner on the afternoon of Friday July 22.

The IPCC has interviewed all three people involved. Sources say that one aide to the commissioner has rejected Mr Paddick’s account, but the other testimony has been inconclusive so far.

The IPCC now has to reconcile the differing accounts, but yesterday Scotland Yard said the suggestion that an aide to the commissioner knew that the man shot at Stockwell was innocent was “simply not true … We are aware of the suggestion, who made it and which officer is alleged to have had the information. This is a clearly a matter for the IPCC to clarify. However, the officer in the commissioner’s private office has categorically denied this in his interview with, and statement to, the IPCC investigators. This has also been corroborated by other staff in the private office.

Mr Paddick would not comment about his account of events inside Scotland Yard, but said: “I’ve made a statement to the IPCC. There is an investigation ongoing and it would be inappropriate for me to discuss what I’ve told the IPCC.”

The disclosure that one of Sir Ian’s most senior officer’s has made a formal statement questioning his account of the de Menezes killings caps a torrid week for the commissioner. Sir Ian had to apologise to the attorney general after admitting that he secretly recorded a conversation they had, and he also had to say sorry to the chairman of the IPCC for covertly recording him.

Last week, it was revealed that several people inside Scotland Yard on the day of the de Menezes shooting had told the IPCC that senior officers they spoke to feared that an innocent man had been shot. Harriet Wistrich, solicitor for the de Menezes family, said: “The commissioner is central to the investigation, it would be wrong for the IPCC not to seek to question him. He should be questioned, he is central to our complaint.”

Mr Paddick came to prominence as a commander in Lambeth, south London, where he pioneered a policy where people arrested with small amounts of cannabis were cautioned rather than charged, saving police time.

A Yard source described the current atmosphere at Scotland Yard as “poisonous”. Another senior Met source strongly dismissed suggestions that the commissioner had known that an innocent man had been shot before the next day. “Ian Blair didn’t know; the staff officer didn’t know,” said the source. “Was there any uncertainty on Friday evening? Yes, but was there certainty? No. We only reached the point where we knew an innocent person was dead on Saturday morning. I’m absolutely confident Ian Blair didn’t know.”

Mr de Menezes was killed the day after a series of failed terrorist attacks on London’s transport network, and a fortnight after 52 people were killed by four suicide bombers in the city. After he was shot, officers recovered a card bearing his name and picture, and had to establish whether it was a fake.

Sir Ian told the News of the World: “The key component was that at that time, and for the next 24 hours, I and everybody who advised me believed the person shot was a suicide bomber.”

[/u]