Justice at last then as it looks like the Met will, after all, be prosecuted for the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell. Prosecuted, that is, under health and safety laws:
it looks increasingly likely that if charges are brought they will be under the Health and Safety Act 1974, accusing the Met of failing in its duty of care to protect Mr Menezes. If found guilty the Met would face an unlimited fine. The health and safety laws have been changed in the past year so that the commissioner or chief constable is no longer personally liable for the actions of their staff.
Oh, well fucking played.
And best of all if this type of prosecution goes ahead it means the two independent inquiries (Stockwell 1 and 2) would almost certainly be delayed well into next year. So let's play the health and safety game for a minute - we're well versed in the regular use because we've all had to sit through some training video at some point where we're reminded to pick things up with our knees bent, not lean ladders in odd places and not leave power cords trailing all over the office - does this mean the police get an extra video about not shooting people in the face? Because some of those fucks need to rewatch it. From where we're standing (and of course we're not experts or anything) it would seem to us that working out if the Met failed in its duty of care to protect Mr Menezes is a something of an open and shut case.
If one member of the Londonist team decided to smash the brains out of another member of the Londonist team we doubt that we'd get away with saying it was simply a health and safety violation - if the police came in and shot one of us in the head to save us from terrorism then it would be.
Maybe the Met should face further health and safety charges seeing as most of the 11 police officers who were considered for possible prosecution have taken legal advice to refrain from giving full statements to investigators. Surely by refusing to give full statements these officers are also failing in their duty of care to protect the rest of us by ensuring this doesn't happen again. Well it already did happen again, but you know what we mean. Again again...
