Non-Subscriber Extract
Stockwell shooting - Met prosecution has "serious implications"
- Article Tools
| 20 July 2006 |
By Eve Pertile
Prosecuting the Metropolitan Police for a health and safety breach over the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes on 22 July 2005 would have a "serious impact" on counter-terrorism activities and other operations making them virtually impossible to carry out, a former commander of the force's specialist firearms team has warned.
Mike Waldren, who was also head of SO19 training, said this week the decision could also have serious repercussions for general policing.
He told Police Review that the suggested prosecution "has potential for enormous repercussions".
Waldren added: "Very few police operations, if any, ever fully comply with health and safety - that was evident when Lord John Stevens and Lord Paul Condon [both former Met commissioners] were prosecuted [for alleged breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974]."
Waldren said: "If the [CPS] prosecution goes ahead, it will have a serious impact on police operations - not least Kratos [the service's shoot-to-stop policy] and others involved in counter-terrorism, and would make policing counter-terrorism, or any other operations, virtually impossible."
172 of 866 words