Met Chief To Be Questioned Under Caution

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 -*test*-('")imony 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."

The first detailed police account of the aftermath of the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian killed after being mistaken for a terror suspect, can be revealed today by The Observer.

The -*test*-('")imony by a top Scotland Yard officer confirms that the police did not know for nearly 24 hours that they had shot a man with no terrorist links. His account backs claims by the head of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Ian Blair, that he was unaware until the following morning that de Menezes was innocent.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Alan Given, one of the officers in command of the Met's firearms unit, also reveals that the officers were initially 'buoyant' after the shooting, thinking they had 'protected Londoners' from a dangerous assailant.

The account - the first from anyone directly involved in the shooting or its aftermath - comes in an exclusive interview with Given, the most senior officer directly responsible for the CO19 tactical firearms team who shot de Menezes at Stockwell tube station on 22 July last year. Given met the officers who killed de Menezes that afternoon, and later attended a series of high-level meetings about the investigation into it.

His evidence goes to the heart of the 'Stockwell II' inquiry by the Independent Police Complaints Commission into Blair's claims that he was not briefed about de Menezes's innocence until the following day. If the inquiry were to find against Sir Ian, it would put pressure on him to resign. 'Stockwell 1' is the already-completed IPCC report into the shooting itself, which has gone to the CPS.

Given said that he saw Assistant Commissioner Alan Brown, who was co-ordinating work by several Yard departments on the shooting, shortly before he went home at 11pm on the Friday. 'When I left, I had no indication that the wrong person had been shot,' said Given. 'Alan had no clue that we had made a mistake. I did not learn the truth until the following day.'

Last week, the commissioner was the subject of a series of media leaks that led to calls for his resignation. He apologised for taping phone calls with IPCC officials and with the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith.

Later reports that his private office knew that de Menezes was innocent by the afternoon of 22 July were denied. Together with other senior officers, Given insisted that Sir Ian had become the target of a 'grossly unjustified' campaign.

Given said that, having briefed the commissioner, he went to Leman Street police station in east London to see the two officers who shot de Menezes, at about 4.30pm on the day of the shooting. 'They were behaving in a very professional way,' he said. 'They'd done the job that we ask firearms officers to do - to go out into potentially dangerous situations and shoot someone.

'They were sombre, clearly concerned that they had shot a man dead. There wasn't even a sniff of the fact that there had been a tragic mistake. There was no rejoicing, but the mood was buoyant.'

Given said he also spoke to Commander Cressida Dick, the firearms team chief who is thought to have given the order to shoot. She, too, had been convinced that de Menezes was a terrorist.

Throughout the day, he revealed, a 'Gold group' met at two-hourly intervals at Scotland Yard, at which senior officers from all the departments involved with the shooting presented their la-*test*-('") findings. Some meetings were attended by Given in person, others by a member of his staff, who briefed him later.

According to Given, Sir Ian 'has tried to be as open and honest as he can,' he said. 'He's now facing a campaign that is grossly unfair, much of it based on information that is totally inaccurate.'

Last week, other senior police figures strongly backed the commissioner, including Chris Fox, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, who suggested that the campaign was fuelled by elements of the media and a minority inside the police who were opposed to Sir Ian's support for racial diversity and ethnic minority recruitment.

Sir Ian, he said, was accused of being 'politically correct,' where in fact, 'what he's trying to do is be fair'.