Original subtitles

TRAINS THUNDERING

I decided to keep a journal.

Explain, explore my feelings that I was going through at the time.

I wanted something there for my children.

I haven't spoken to my children

about what actually happened on that day.

I hope my children understand why I had to do those things.

SIRENS BLARE

Four explosions have rocked central London

in a major coordinated terrorist attack.

The pictures are truly horrific.

All hospitals are on full alert.

Remember, this was rush hour in London,

that bus was packed with people.

A horrifying reminder of the stark reality of terror.

There are people still below ground.

The scene was utter chaos and pandemonium,

people screaming, crying,

"There's been a bomb, there's been a bomb."

Suddenly, and for the second time in a fortnight, chaos.

Smoke. Rucksack bombs.

Police have shot a suspected suicide bomber.

Just heard, "Bang. Bang. Bang." I heard three bangs.

British policing changed forever today.

CHANTING: Murderers! Murderers!

The family are furious with the police, claiming a cover-up.

This is a huge step for me.

Erm...

I can't stress the enormity of it.

But I think it's important I explain what I did on that day.

That should be good. That's right. Thank you.

Yeah.

I'm Tony Blair, I was Prime Minister at the time.

I mean I never experienced a few days like it in politics ever,

and I don't suppose many leaders have.

The Games of the 30th Olympiad, 2012,

are awarded to the City of London.

CHEERING

We realised we were going to host the Olympics

and that was obviously a fantastic moment,

people were absolutely delighted.

Prime Minister, is there anything you have to say

to the people of London at this moment?

Well done. CHEERING

And then I had to go straight into the G8 summit

opening in Scotland at Gleneagles.

SHUTTERS CLICKING

He's here. Mr Blair...

It was the major gathering of the leading western powers.

On the morning of the 7th of July,

I was in a bilateral meeting with the Chinese president.

And around about ten to nine,

during the course of that meeting,

I got handed a piece of paper saying there'd been

a series of incidents on the London Underground.

At that time, I didn't have any more information about it.

But I, you know, the moment you get passed a note like that, you...

You expect the worst.

Breaking news we're getting from the PA newswire,

there have been reports of an explosion

outside Liverpool Street Station.

Speculation only at the moment of what caused that,

but Police stressing it probably was a power failure

or a collision between two trains.

In 2005, I was a firearms officer in the Metropolitan Police.

I had a great deal of experience.

I'd worked hundreds of firearms operations.

On the morning of 7/7, I was at home.

I was married.

I had a daughter, who was running around,

she was about two years old at this stage.

And then suddenly, our phones came alive

with what had happened.

London's worst attack since the Second World War,

a shocking toll of dead and injured,

and the entire capital city's transport system paralysed

as at no time in history.

The bombers struck with ruthless effect,

and there appears to have been no signal of their intent.

SIRENS BLARE

Appalling scene,

the top of this double decker bus blown clean off.

The police were now facing the reality,

multiple bombs across the capital -

a coordinated, calculated terrorist outrage.

Ladies and gents, please, listen to me very carefully.

I need you to move this way, please, as quick as you can.

The casualties were ferried to nearby hospitals.

People brought in with shards of glass embedded in their skin,

burns and smoke inhalation.

People started to scream

because there was a burning smell.

We were all trapped like sardines waiting to die

and I honestly thought my time was up.

It was just black and we just got out so we've no idea it was...

What did you hear after the explosion? People just screaming.

Just screaming. We just... I thought it was on fire.

I don't know, but there's some seriously injured people there,

and it's not good.

I was in the front carriage

and people were severely injured there.

The smell, the smoke, you couldn't breathe. Awful smell.

You couldn't see anything, it was just horrible.

I just want to get home.

Guys, can you keep moving down, please.

The number of dead and injured still growing,

but the scale of the disaster clearly enormous.

The feeling was that we'd failed.

We've let everyone down by not being there,

to try and save life.

It was a terrible feeling.

We were immediately all called in.

We were all there, ready to go.

And we were just waiting for any intel

or any taskings for us to get involved with.

Obviously, as the media releases more information

and you realise how many people have been brutally slain,

it was a terrible, terrible feeling,

it really did shake everyone to the core.

My name is Richard Walton.

I was a Detective Superintendent in Special Branch.

I would describe the response post-7/7,

the two, three weeks after that,

as the most intense period in my career - 30-year career.

Without any hesitation.

On the day of 7/7, I was in Cobra, in the Cabinet Office,

briefing in to government at the highest levels what was going on.

The intelligence agencies galvanised very, very quickly.

The finger of suspicion does tend to point towards groups

linked to Al-Qaeda.

Police say they received no warning before the attack.

Security experts say it has all the hallmarks

of the Al-Qaeda network.

Britain's security services have long said,

"It's not a matter of if, but when."

TONY BLAIR: It was very clear that this arose

out of Islamist extremism.

Post 9/11, you know, London was obviously going to be a target.

There was ongoing military action in Afghanistan and Iraq,

and you had terrorist groups operating

in different parts of the world and linking up with each other.

You're dealing with people who have no regard for their own lives,

never mind the lives of other people,

so we couldn't let down our guard at all.

The first morning rush hour after terrorism,

and the Tube definitely wasn't as packed as normal.

I found myself looking around all the time like this, thinking,

you know, "Is there a package? Is there a parcel?

"Or is something going to happen?"

RICHARD: During the immediate days after 7/7,

we were absolutely concerned about further attacks.

We had many extremists born in Britain, educated in Britain,

travelling out to Pakistan and Afghanistan

to be trained by Al-Qaeda,

and then they returned to the UK as British nationals,

British citizens, and then carry out attacks,

from within, if you like, from within the country.

Other side of the pavement!

And you, and you, move back.

24 hours after London was attacked,

Liverpool Street Station was shut for an hour this morning,

while passengers wondered whether it might all be happening again.

In the days that followed,

we were dealing, almost on a daily basis, with phone calls

being made saying there's going to be another attack.

It's extremely difficult to prevent terrorist attacks,

particularly to large cities.

We knew the threat was escalating.

DEAN: What had happened two weeks later,

I have to live with for the rest of my life.

Everything told me,

everything told me that I was going to die.

My name is Angus Campbell.

In 2005, I was a member of the London Fire Brigade.

My youngest son was just six weeks old.

Do you think people remember what happened on that day? No.

No. No.

Just wait there for a sec, put your bag on the floor, please.

Security has been stepped up since the attacks two weeks ago.

Sniffer dogs trained to detect explosives have been used

at major underground stations.

I was going to work that day,

and I got on the tube at Tooting Bec.

And I started the mundane journey

up on the Northern line to go to work.

The journey was very, very normal.

We pulled into Stockwell Station,

and again, nothing much happened.

The door shuts, train pulls away, and we enter the tunnel.

And the moment we enter the tunnel, there's an explosion.

MUFFLED BANG

There's an enormous bang,

and it's really, really loud.

And I jump. I don't jump very much.

And I jumped.

And the carriage in its entirety filled with smoke.

I can hear screaming and shouting.

And then the smoke starts to dissipate and we can see a man.

And he's shouting and screaming

and he's flapping at the back of his,

at the back of his neck.

So I pull the alarm.

The other people in our end of the carriage have gone through

the adjoining doors to the other carriage.

And they beckoned to me to come through

and I choose not to.

As a firefighter, you walk into a building

or walk into a situation that everybody else is running away from.

And then there's an interaction

and the interaction is really, really aggressive.

But I want to help him, and I'm quite determined to help him

because I think he's burnt.

So I walk down the carriage towards him.

Now I can see what's on the floor.

And what's on the floor is the remains of his rucksack.

There's actually a flame flickering around the rucksack

and it's smouldering.

And there's still quite a lot of smoke emitting from it.

And inside the rucksack I could also see very distinctly

nails, bolts, and another paraphernalia.

This is a bomb and he's trying to carry out mass-murder.

And it dawns on me just what's happening.

I'm on a moving vehicle.

I'm 200ft underground.

I'm in front of an individual who's just tried

to commit mass murder.

He's now threatening to kill me.

And I'm all on my own.

You can see how close I am to him.

It's very intense, isn't it?

And then, of course,

what happens is we pull into the Oval,

the Oval tube station, and the train comes to a halt.

And then the driver comes on the tannoy

and his voice is really, really bored.

And he says, "Whoever sounded the alarm,

"will they please make themselves known to the driver?"

So I ran back. I said, "Yes, yes, we've got him.

"Don't open the doors. Don't open the doors."

Call the police. We can hold him here.

And then the doors open and he runs,

and he was gone.

And he was gone-gone.

I went up and back up to street level.

Fresh air. Which is, which is nice.

And I was shaking and I was obviously frightened.

I phoned my wife and I said,

"I think something's happened."

And she said, "What do you mean something happened?"

I said, "I'm not really sure,

"but I think someone's tried to blow up my train."

And she said, "Oh, that's a bit odd. Are you OK?"

And I said, "Yes, I'm fine."

Then she actually says, "Actually, it's not just you.

"They've done it all over London again.

"They're trying to replicate what they'd done

"two weeks to the day earlier and terrorise London all over again."

Some breaking news just in.

In the past few minutes, we've had reports

that several London underground stations have been evacuated

and that smoke has been seen coming from a train.

SIRENS BLARE

London under attack again, two weeks to the day.

The target's the same -

three tube trains, one bus.

Can you please move?

Tens of thousands evacuated, explosions, smoke, rucksack bombs.

And the capital's streets are again reduced to this.

Panic, confusion, fear.

Suddenly people were starting screaming and shouting and running.

They just said, you know, that you need to evacuate,

you know, you need to get out.

This time, the explosions were much smaller,

and there are reports of just one casualty.

It appears tonight that the bombs failed to detonate properly.

SIREN BLARES

It's believed that the detonators went off,

but the explosives themselves didn't explode.

On the 21st, we were engaged on an operation.

We were in an abandoned building,

and when we heard that there had been another

attempted terrorist attack and that this one was different,

that the devices hadn't gone off,

and so therefore there were four suspects,

failed suicide bombers, on the run.

In the hours since the bombs were detonated,

police have become convinced

this was a serious attempt on London.

As they search for evidence, a massive manhunt's under way.

Knowing that there were four people on the run

who attempted to commit further atrocities

was a pretty horrific thought.

And in fairness, this was a tactic that we hadn't prepared for.

Out of all that planning about how to deal with suicide terrorism,

we hadn't actually catered for the fact that we're going to have

four people on the run,

because technically, they shouldn't be there, should they?

They should have committed suicide,

committed the atrocity,

and we're just there to pick up the pieces.

So it was a tactic, really, that we hadn't really trained for.

While today's bombings were nothing like

the horrors of two weeks ago,

there are striking similarities,

and detectives will be gathering all the evidence they can,

in the hope of catching whoever was responsible.

My name is Douglas McKenna.

My role in 2005 was Detective Superintendent

at the anti-terrorist branch based at New Scotland Yard in London.

I took responsibility as the sort of

senior investigating officer

for the events of the 21st of July.

SIRENS BLARE

To all intents and purposes,

it bore very similar hallmarks

to the events of the morning of the 7th of July.

Men. Backpacks. Explosions.

Three underground trains, one bus.

You have four suspects who you believe have just tried

to commit acts of terror in London on the loose.

Nobody knows what the playbook is of a failed suicide bomber.

PHONES RINGING, CHATTER

So there's a great deal of concern of - what are they going to do next?

There was a massive operation taking place

between the police and the security services.

Have you got, you know, hundreds of potential leads at that point?

None. Or have you actually got a small... We've got none.

There was no advance intelligence

and there was no real understanding of who these individuals were,

what group they were connected with,

what group they were being coordinated by, if any.

And therefore, these were all unknowns.

As soon as the actual scenes of the failed attacks

had been made safe by the explosives officers,

our forensic crime scene examiners will have been carefully examining

the material that was left behind.

During the course of the night, early hours in the morning,

officers had managed to recover a gym membership card

from the bag at Shepherd's Bush.

This card related to a Hussen Osman.

And it identified an address of 21 Scotia Road.

A major operation had already been put in place overnight

to mount surveillance on the premises.

That is the starting point for the manhunt.

Police are continuing to hunt for four bombers who attempted

to carry out terror attacks on three tube trains

and a bus in London yesterday.

This image has just been released of the rucksack left

by one of the bombers on the top deck

of the number 26 bus in Hackney.

I cycled into work, got in there really early,

and we were told that one of the suspects had been identified

and his address had been identified.

Because of the nature of the threat,

we were told to change the ammunition over from our handguns,

from our normal rounds, to 124gr dumdum bullets...

..which were specifically authorised

for suicide killer operations,

to potentially deliver a critical shot.

21 Scotia Road is a multi-occupancy,

relatively small block of flats...

..but with one communal entry.

So there was surveillance operation around the premises,

and the surveillance officers had the image

from the gym membership card.

A gym membership card had been found in the top of a rucksack

which had partially detonated.

And we were shown a faxed copy of it.

It was black and white, very, very grainy.

And we were shown this as we left the briefing.

We had to commit that grainy image to memory.

We had to pass it around.

There was only one image of this.

To try and...

No, absolutely not.

There was only one image available.

I've no idea.

In any fast time, fast-moving operation,

especially with the level of threat that was faced,

you don't have time to question those orders.

We had to find this suspect.

How are you feeling about earrings? Yeah.

What kind of ...? I've got those.

I'm Theresa Godly and I'm an actor.

They're fab. Great.

Brilliant. Go with that.

My acting career so far has

compromised shows like Bridgerton...

..EastEnders,

lots of TV commercials, which are always fun.

In 2005,I was living in South London,

you know, I'm kind of pretty much born and bred South London girl,

and I was working in Central London.

There was definitely a nervous tension.

London didn't seem as happy-go-lucky.

You know, people were suspicious of anyone

who looked like they could be a terrorist.

A male, south Asian, beard, you know.

But for me, personally,

even when something like that happens, you think,

"Well, I'm not going to let that stop my daily life."

On the 22nd, I just wanted to put my headphones on,

grab my bag, get out the door, get the bus,

get the tube, go to work.

What's the worst that could happen?

It was a normal day. We kitted the cars up,

and we were given an area where we had to go to.

We were going to be concentrating on

a suspect called Hussain Osman of Scotia Road,

which was in Tulse Hill.

There was a central information room based at Scotland Yard

which would have live intelligence feeds.

The control room there will

have been responsible for managing

the assets that were on the ground,

the surveillance team and the firearms team

around 21 Scotia Road.

My understanding and memory of the events,

an individual exited the block of flats at Scotia Road,

er, walked to the bus stop,

er, got on a bus.

Somebody in the surveillance team is already in close proximity

to the individual who's on the bus.

The firearms team are waiting to get called forward

if an intervention is required.

I was the car commander.

I was sitting in the front passenger seat,

and I was in charge of the radios.

They're antiquated,

and so the range of the signal varies greatly.

And I remember hearing, er,

some broken communications that...that were inaudible.

So I phoned the second-in-command, who's my friend,

and I asked...I said to him,

"What's happening?"

And he said, it looks as though we potentially got a suspect

on a number two bus heading towards Brixton.

The number two bus was packed.

I remember thinking, "Gosh, I don't like this."

It gives me a bit of anxiety.

But I remember thinking, "It's only a few stops, so I can deal with it."

I actually knew where the number two bus went,

so we ended up driving at quite some speed.

I wanted to get into contention with the rest of the team

and any potential suspect movements.

I do know that there were surveillance officers

on the bus with him.

One of the surveillance units identified that this was possibly

Hussain Osman, our target.

Apparently, he was on his phone, he was agitated,

looking around the whole time.

We could be looking at a detonation on a bus...

..the same on the bombings on 7/7.

Normally, on a bus that busy,

there'd be conversations going on, people on the phone,

people laughing, you know. But it was a lot more subdued.

Given what had happened on 7/7...

everyone kind of nervously looking

and eyeing up who you were standing next to,

and who was oppositive you, and who might be on the bus.

I know that he'd got off the bus.

He'd gone towards Brixton tube station,

had suddenly turned around,

and then got back on the same bus again.

And this was interpreted as

an anti-surveillance movement.

The bus was now heading towards Stockwell.

So we drove along,

and I can actually see the bus up ahead.

And I pointed out to my crew, "That's the bus. That's the bus."

So the bus turns into Stockwell, so we get off the bus,

and then it's just a short walk

down the street to Stockwell tube station.

I heard that the suspect was off a bus.

We're looking for an Asian-looking male wearing all denims.

My name is Sam.

At the time I was living five minutes' walk

from Stockwell tube station, which was a huge bonus to me,

and one of the main reasons for living there.

Every day, I'd go to Stockwell station

and travel a few stops

and get off at the Southbank for my job.

I was more conscious of the fact that an Asian with a backpack

on public transport would be getting more attention.

I thought, for a brief time, that I might go looking for

a transparent backpack,

just to show what an innocent character I was.

The one that I found was about this big,

and was peppered with bright pink hearts

and was clearly designed for a seven-year-old girl.

At that point I thought,

"I am going to stop worrying about this."

It was just an ordinary working day,

nothing special about it.

I stepped into the station,

as I had done hundreds of times before.

We arrived outside Stockwell tube station.

Yeah, I got to Stockwell tube, went through the ticket barriers.

I remember hearing the surveillance officer saying,

"Suspect is now in...in...into Stockwell tube station.

"What do you want us to do?"

And we didn't hear anything.

We just heard, "Standby. Standby."

And we just waited.

You cannot act singly in these type of scenarios,

you don't know what damage you're going to do.

You have to wait for that command decision,

even though the anxiety was building up.

I went through the ticket barrier, as normal,

went down the escalator, got on the train.

And then I sat down and I waited.

And I waited.

The train sat there,

it didn't leave the platform.

I'm daydreaming, I'm staring into space,

and I notice a fairly well-built white man,

middle aged, standing up and looking quite nervous.

And he keeps darting sidelong glances out of the door

at the entrance of the platform,

which leads to the escalators.

It looks as if he's waiting for his friends to join him.

But this makes no sense.

You would wait on the platform, because the doors could slide shut,

you could be out of the station any moment.

No-one waits for their friends on the train.

In retrospect, he simply must have been

a plainclothes policeman who was waiting for

the uniformed armed policemen to join him.

Roughly, we're waiting about a minute,

a minute and ten seconds, at the most,

and then our radios suddenly came to life.

"He must not get on the tube. Stop him from getting on the tube."

And then my team sergeant said,

"State red. State red."

Which was our terminology for...deployment.

So I...I left my vehicle.

Ran straight across the road,

er, through the traffic. And I thought I was on my own.

Absolutely, I didn't know,

I hadn't seen any of the other team.

And then I had, er, eye contact with C2,

and he's my close friend, my brother-in-arms.

And just seeing him,

having that eye contact

where we both knew that we were there together...

..was...was a good feeling.

It was a good feeling.

We knew that the suspect had gone through the barriers

and actually gone through down to onto the tube station,

so we knew we were playing catch-up.

I vaulted, er, the turnstile.

I had nothing on me to identify that I was a police officer.

I remember seeing a transport worker look up,

a bit shocked, and before he could say anything,

I managed to just chop him out of the way with my hand,

and then jump down,

and I sprinted towards the escalators.

And I just ran down.

I know my weapon was out at this stage,

but I tucked it down by my right buttock and out of view.

I remember thinking, "Who am I looking for?"

Trying to recall that person from that photograph

that I had about a 10-second glimpse of.

I looked along the line of the tube carriageway

and the line was broken by a foot.

And I sort of zeroed in on that foot.

And it was sticking out the door.

And I recognised the technique.

And I just immediately looked at him

and I stepped on board the tube,

and I just assumed it was a surveillance officer,

I'd never seen this person before.

And...and it was.

And as soon as I took one step onto that tube...

..he's spun round

and he's indicated a person sitting

on the opposite corner, and he went, "That's him."

So things happen really, really, really quickly at this stage.

As soon as that surveillance officer said,

identified and pointed at this male,

that person stood up.

But it was the way they stood up

that triggered something in my head that wasn't right.

He had his hands,

they were almost hovering above his knees.

And as he stood up,

he didn't use anything to push himself off a chair

or anything like that.

He just got up like this

and immediately turned to his right,

which is where we were, and came towards us.

At the same time,

I brought my weapon up and pointed at his head

and shouted, "Armed police."

And at that stage, in my head...

..this person knew who we were.

This person, by the way they got up,

was coming forward in order to detonate a bomb

and kill us.

He still continued on his forward momentum

as I had my weapon up, pointing at his head.

I remember the surveillance officer then,

in full body contact with him.

And apparently what he was trying to do was pin his hands

so that he couldn't detonate.

I'm aware of C2,

who's on my left-hand side.

I can just see him in my peripheral vision,

and I just know, I'm expecting an explosion at any moment.

He's going to blow, we're going to die.

But that is the...that's the nub of it -

if I don't do something now, we are all going to die,

the public, everyone's going to die.

We're going to die.

I knew I had to take that shot.

I just knew I had to.

And I couldn't,

because the surveillance officer's head's in the way.

So I've had to push his head out of the way

in order to get on target.

So I did that with my gun -

quickly brought it up, and then, once his head was clear...

..I engaged with a...a few shots.

Time seemed to slow down then.

I remember seeing the shots going in,

but then having to close my eyes,

um, because of the force of the explosion.

Without being too indelicate,

there was debris coming back.

And I remember sort of partially flinching,

er, with, er, the stuff that was coming back.

At the same time, er,

C2 was pushing down on the surveillance officer's head

with his hand in order so that he could take

the shots on the required area.

It was a simultaneous action by both myself and C2.

I remember once we finished firing...

..there was...

..like a deafening silence and a real stillness.

I remember thinking, I need to make sure you're dead.

And so I partially took a half step back

and I fired another shot.

Er, and I didn't see any movement.

And I just thought, "We stopped this bomb from going off."

I remember a man running past saying, "Out the way. Out the way.

"Get out the way! Get out the way!" And I saw they had guns.

And then suddenly we hear shouting and running.

And, in a flash, you can see a crowd of very well-built men.

You see a flash of black and white.

And I remember thinking instantly,

"It's the police. There's some kind of incident.

"It's time to get off this train."

There's a woman standing next to me, and we just kind of did that...

"What should we do?" And she's looking like, "What should we do?"

And we just ran.

I remember hearing shots,

and I think at least one woman crying out in fear.

And then you think, "If it's armed police,

"are they...are they chasing after a suicide bomber?

"And if there is a suicide bomber

"in the same space as me...

"..I could be dead in a minute. "

We're off the train in seconds.

We're all running down the length of the platform.

The only way out is an exit right at the end of the platform.

So, for about 50 yards or so,

you're just running down, very much aware that if anybody shot down

the length of platform, it would be fish in a barrel,

there'd be nowhere to go.

So for a few seconds, we're all aware there is nowhere to hide.

And everything flashes past.

I just thought about my daughter.

Um, I just wanted to get home to her.

Er...

Yeah. I was thinking about my daughter the whole time.

Everybody ran to the end and then got on the escalators.

And I just remember thinking, "I nearly died today.

"I could have died today.

"Thank God...

"..the police were able to...to get in the way of that.

"Thank God a bomb didn't go off and hurt anybody."

So I remember leaving the tube,

and I went back, er, towards the escalators,

and I stayed in the tunnel.

And then I was joined by C2.

And I looked at him and I thought...

"What's happened?"

Because I looked at him

and he was covered, er, blood, debris from head to foot.

And I think I was in the same...

Well, I know I was in the same state because I could see it,

er, I could feel it on my face,

and I could see it on my clothes.

There was no elation.

There was no...shitty high five,

there was nothing like that at all.

It was just that...

..we've been through something and we're here.

We've...we've survived.

And that was it.

I remember being quietly driven away,

er, back to, er, our base.

We went in through the back gate.

I was acutely aware...

um, of the contamination that we had on us -

if I can use that word.

Um, I could see,

er, the blood, everything.

We were covered in it.

And our post-incident manager refused

to let us get out of our clothes

because he was worried about the evidential chain.

So we...we wore those clothes,

and we were in the state we were in

for a good couple of hours,

which was pretty horrific.

Pretty horrific.

I just couldn't wait to have a shower.

I just needed to cleanse myself.

I remember getting all the soap all over myself,

er, pouring it all over my head, like large amounts.

I remember feeling, like, tiny, little sharp fragments in my head,

and, um, and it...and it...

And I thought, "I don't know what that is."

And I looked down at the, er, the white bowl...

..and it was pink with blood.

And then I suddenly realised,

because I was examining these bits

and they were like bone splinters.

They were from the person we shot.

And it was...and it was just like, "Oh, God!

"I just need to close my eyes. I need to get clean."

I didn't want to see any more of someone else's blood.

How do you feel now, telling me?

Oh, it's hard. It is hard telling you these things.

Yeah, reliving it in this detail is painful.

Absolutely. Of course it is.

I want to make sure that people understand that these decisions,

although they're taken quickly are not taken lightly.

And I've never fired shots at anyone.

I've never had to use that level of force at anyone before.

But, because of his actions, what he did,

the information we've received...

..it left me with no other conclusion

than I had to act or we were going to die.

I had officers who were at the scene of the shooting.

I was being kept apprised of what was going on

on the ground at the time.

They started the forensic examination of

the man who'd been shot.

There were individuals who were present at the scene

who, despite the horrific injuries that he'd sustained,

were pretty confident that it wasn't Hussain Osman.

Crime scene examiners found an identity card.

They had shot an innocent young man.

And the death at the hands of police of an innocent man

can only be characterised as a disaster.

Murderers! Murderers! Murderers!

REPORTER: A vigil for Jean Charles de Menezes,

the 27-year-old Brazilian shot dead by the police on Friday.

REPORTER: The family are furious

with the police, claiming a cover-up.

And they want to see pictures of the person who shot their cousin.

They want punishment to be served.

He should be incarcerated, where he belongs.

REPORTER: With every passing hour, it seems

the net is tightening on this terrorist cell.

The big question is, though,

can the police catch these men before they strike again?

Everyone goes through a lot in life, don't they?

And whatever's given to you,

you have to cope with, as best you can.

I joined the Metropolitan Police about 18.

I've dealt with quite a lot of things.

I've always seen policing, good versus evil.

Clear defined terms. We're the goodies,

you've got to fight the baddies

for the benefit of the good people in society.

Never thought that I would have to face

a situation where I could turn from being a goody,

to suddenly being a suspect in the case.

As a police officer, if you're charged with an offence,

your life is over.

WOMAN: That was the scariest thing that has ever happened in my life.

And I just remember thinking I nearly died today,

I could have died today.

SIRENS WAIL

Some breaking news coming from the Metropolitan Police.

We understand that there are reports that police have shot

a suspected suicide bomber in South London.

I remember all of us running up the escalators.

When we got to the top, there was obviously

a lot of police activity outside,

and they were trying to get us away from the station.

We crossed the road, and there was a NatWest bank on the corner.

We've moved inside the bank and they shut the doors

and locked the doors. You could hear the helicopters,

so quite soon after that you had all the news networks

had their helicopters above.

There is now a major security alert

at Stockwell tube station in South London.

Within the past few minutes,

Scotland Yard have confirmed that armed officers have shot a man.

From Stockwell station down here, which is still cordoned off,

we understand that the police have brought the eyewitnesses up

Stockwell Road here to the YMCA.

We were asked to get in these vans by the police,

not talk to anyone.

And we were just moved to this place.

And I was there for hours.

We were all there for hours,

because they had to interview everyone.

I think at that point, reading between the lines now,

they wanted to get their ducks in a row.

My name is Brian Paddick.

In 2005,

I was the acting Assistant Commissioner,

territorial policing in the Metropolitan Police.

We're joined now from Westminster by Brian Paddick.

We are exploring every conceivable avenue.

We'll be looking at CCTV.

We'll be looking at the forensic evidence available.

The Met was on a war footing. I was doing 18-hour days.

We had a manhunt.

We were searching for four people who wanted

to be suicide bombers, who hadn't detonated their bombs,

who potentially could simply regroup,

reformulate their bombs, and be successful next time.

You know, the Met was under, intense pressure.

NEWSCASTER: Let's just recap today's dramatic events.

A suspected suicide bomber has been shot dead by police

at Stockwell tube station at around 10am this morning.

REPORTER: What we know from eyewitness accounts is

a man ran into the station,

leapt the barriers, hotly pursued by police.

This man was clearly under surveillance

by a number of police officers.

One witness talking about eight or nine.

And I think that lends weight to the very strong suggestion

that he was one of the four would-be suicide bombers from yesterday.

None of that has been confirmed by Scotland Yard.

I'm sure they're very busy in there trying

to put together the story of what exactly happened.

About five hours after the shooting,

I went to see the Commissioner's staff officer,

in their office on the eighth floor,

a few doors down from where the commissioner's office is.

To... I said, "What's happening?"

I'd been told that we'd shot somebody at Stockwell.

And the Chief Superintendent said,

"You'll never guess what we've done now."

And I said, "No."

And he said, "We shot an innocent Brazilian."

And I said, "You're joking."

And the chief of staff said,

"No. We found a Brazilian identity document in his back pocket."

I was in charge of the manhunt to try to find

the four failed suicide bombers.

It was quite clear,

by about four o'clock in the afternoon, to me,

and I think probably to others,

that the person who'd been shot was Jean Charles de Menezes,

who was a Brazilian national,

who was in the United Kingdom, working as an electrician.

How did that feel? Oh, sickening.

Yeah.

What other word could you use for it?

I mean, it was absolutely, yeah, devastating. Yeah.

Just after I was told that we shot the wrong guy,

the Commissioner walked past in full uniform,

on his way to the Queen Elizabeth II Centre to do

a press conference.

So I went back to my office

to watch the press conference, live on TV.

Thank you. Thank you for coming.

As part of the operations linked

to yesterday's incidents,

Metropolitan Police officers have shot

a man inside Stockwell underground station.

The information I have available is that this shooting is directly

linked to the ongoing and expanding anti-terrorist operation.

I need to make clear that any death is deeply regrettable.

But on... As I understand the situation,

the man was challenged

and refused to obey police instructions.

The Met put up four still photographs from CCTV

of the four attempted suicide bombers

that they were looking for from the previous day.

Do you recognise any of these men?

Did you see them at the three underground stations or on the bus?

I just thought to myself,

"Well, if we're still looking for these four suicide bombers,

"who is it that we shot?"

Would be an obvious question for the media to ask,

but nobody asked it.

I hope very much that we will be able to bring this

to as swift a conclusion as possible. Thanks very much.

The commissioner says that he wasn't told on the day

the identity of the person who'd been shot.

He says he didn't know until the following day.

But some people at Scotland Yard

knew that this guy was clearly innocent...

..and they didn't tell that information

to the armed officers who shot him.

I was at our base. The weapons were handed over.

We were seen by doctors

to make sure that we were fit enough

to write some form of evidence.

I remember just already starting to feel exhausted.

Really, really tired.

And then I was given a lift home.

And obviously life continues as normal, doesn't it?

Still had my daughter to look after.

Um... When did you tell your partner what had happened?

I just said, "Look, it's all over the news."

That's me. Because you've got to be honest.

You can't hide things like that.

Were you able to sleep that night?

No, I wasn't able to sleep at all. No.

No, not at all.

Went to work the next day.

We had a designated meeting,

we had to be there for midday.

So we went upstairs to the senior management team,

and we sat down.

And he said, words to the effect,

he said, look, he said, I've got to tell you,

he said, the person that you shot yesterday was unconnected

with the terrorist attacks.

How did that feel?

It's unpleasant. Christ!

You know, this is something I and C2 have to live with

for the rest of our lives.

Obviously.

And it's our duty to fully explain to the family,

in a respectful way, why we acted...

..how we acted.

Everything told me, everything told me,

that I was going to die.

Everything.

And that's why I acted like I did.

And it transpires...

..that wasn't the case.

So how do you think I feel after that?

Good evening.

The Metropolitan Police say the man shot dead

on the London Underground yesterday was not connected

to the hunt for Thursday's bombers.

Tonight, Scotland Yard identified him as Jean Charles de Menezes,

a 27-year-old Brazilian.

REPORTER: Police had said the shooting of a man yesterday morning

at Stockwell tube station was directly linked

to the anti-terrorist operation.

But now Scotland Yard admits that wasn't the case.

He was a 27-year-old Brazilian electrician,

not a terrorist.

REPORTER: Within the past half hour Downing Street has confirmed that

the Prime Minister has been informed of the latest events...

..but he will, like the police,

now come under intense questioning

over how the man at Stockwell station came to be shot,

and exactly what policies are in operation.

I remember being told about

the tragic shooting of the Brazilian young man.

And it was just a terrible, terrible tragedy

because he was obviously completely innocent.

It's just important to recollect

that, at the time, we were only just over two weeks

from the 7/7 bombings themselves.

I mean, everyone was in a heightened state of anxiety

and nervousness.

You know, if they miss someone in those circumstances

and they turn out to be a terrorist,

and then they kill other people.

I mean, the police are going to come under huge criticism.

So it was...it was pretty difficult.

And...and it was just...

it was a tragic accident, that's what it was.

And I said, we've just got to be open about.

It was a terrible mistake,

and we should... We're just going to have to own up to it.

REPORTER: The police have said they ordered him to stop

and that they drew their guns.

It's then believed he jumped the ticket barrier

and run down to platform level,

and was either pushed or fell onto a Northern Line tube,

where he was shot in the head.

A member of the public gave

the account that de Menezes was chased through the station,

vaulting the turnstiles.

Everyone took that as the correct account of what happened.

Witnesses say he vaulted the ticket barriers

and ran down the escalator to the Northern Line train,

where officers shot him eight times.

Myself and C2 didn't have anything on us

to identify that we were armed officers.

Because we were so far ahead

of the rest of the guys that were deploying,

the members of the public mistook us for the actual suspects.

But that was the narrative that everyone went with.

Members of the public,

eye-witnesses, are seeing people vaulting over the gates

and assuming it's the suicide bomber who's vaulting over the gates,

not police officers.

So that's where you get the confusion about that.

But you've also got, um,

the Metropolitan Police not doing anything to try and correct that.

The difficulties are that we're left with so many questions.

We don't know why Jean ran away from the police.

We don't know why he didn't respond when they shouted to him.

REPORTER: Police apparently challenged him. So why did he run?

The police cannot comment, can they,

because the investigation is still going on?

And so they keep quiet, and they let this narrative go.

Well, Gesio de Avila, who was a friend of Jean, is here.

A lot of people, of course, are asking the question,

why would he not give himself up to police?

Why do you think, or you must have spent time thinking,

would he have been running away?

I don't think he ran away.

If he did, he did this action, it is to get to the train,

not from the police.

REPORTER: A vigil outside Stockwell station for Jean Charles De Menezes.

Flowers, candles and protests

over what has now turned out to be a tragic mistake.

INDISTINCT

Three of Mr De Menezes' cousins prayed for him.

My name's Neil Garrett.

I was quite young when this happened. I was 28.

I was a humble newsroom producer at ITV news.

The reports that were in the public domain were saying

that he'd been challenged by firearms officers,

and that, upon being challenged,

he'd run,

and he'd vaulted the barriers,

and he'd run down the escalators,

giving the firearms officers no choice but to chase him.

I remember saying, this is like something out of Hollywood.

This is...this is like James Bond.

The police put out a series of press releases

that repeatedly say, 'His clothing

"and behaviour at the station added to their suspicions."

And there it just seemed something just not quite right about it.

Not quite credible.

So the week following Jean Charles's shooting,

on the Saturday night,

my girlfriend, Louise, was off to a barbecue with some friends.

She had a friend called Lana.

An hour or two later,

I get a phone call from Louise, who is breathless,

and she says, "You're not going to believe this.

"Um, Lana works for the IPCC,

"the Independent Police Complaints Commission,

"this narrative that he's acted suspiciously,

"that he'd dressed suspiciously,

"that he ran when challenged, was a complete lie."

None of it was true.

He'd done nothing to warrant being shot that day.

I knew that this was...this was huge,

that this was something we had to get out there.

I enjoyed school.

A family friend suggested, why don't you join the police?

And it was something I hadn't even considered at all.

But I really love actually going out there

and doing good and doing a worthwhile job.

In 1998, I applied for a specialist firearms officers.

You're trained in close-quarter combat,

room combat, room entries.

You have to be controlled and think about your actions.

Every use of force is going to be scrutinised,

and quite rightly so.

But this does put additional pressures on the officers.

We built up this dossier of leaked IPCC documents.

Statements from the firearms officers,

the statements from the surveillance officers,

statements from Gold Command,

who were in charge of the operation that day.

It presented a completely different account of events

to what was in the public domain at that point.

We had a number of briefings.

We were told information from 7/7

about the way the devices were constructed,

how volatile they were, how they could be set off.

They could be set off remotely,

they could be set off with excessive heat.

You have to frame your mindset to what you might have to face.

We were told that one of the suspects had been identified.

A gym membership card had been found

in the top of a rucksack which had partially detonated.

They knew that Hussain Osman lived

in this multi-occupancy block of flats.

And so they stuck a van outside of those flats

with a surveillance officer in,

and he needed to relieve himself.

But, at the same time, he saw someone leaving this block of flats,

but he didn't get a good look at him,

and so he radioed it in

and said possible suspect has left the flat.

Jean Charles de Menezes exited

the block of flats at Scotia Road,

walked to the bus stop.

Got on a bus.

There were surveillance officers on the bus with him.

The firearms team are waiting to get called forward

if an intervention is required.

As I understood it,

the firearms teams would only be deployed

on positively identified suicide bombers.

The commander in charge of

the operation that day was Cressida Dick...

..one of their most promising officers who they had tipped

as a future Commissioner of the Met.

There was bad communication between the officers on the bus

and Cressida Dick, who was in the control room at Scotland Yard.

The difficulty is, is that you have

a number of different communication networks all running simultaneously.

The surveillance team will be on

a closed encrypted network.

The firearms support team,

also on their own net.

Our radio systems are quite antiquated,

and I remember hearing, some broken communications

that...that were inaudible.

There was a lot of uncertainty and confusion.

Jean Charles is travelling by bus,

hoping to get to Brixton station.

Unbeknown to him,

Brixton station is closed that day,

so he gets off the bus...

..sees that Brixton Tube is closed, and then gets back on the bus.

They thought it was anti-surveillance technique,

because that's what you would do to try

and throw off a tail if you were being followed.

That would have heightened their suspicion.

But they kept saying, we're not sure this is the guy.

The bus is now heading towards Stockwell.

And I'm starting to pick up some radio comms now.

Jean Charles gets off the bus.

He walks calmly into the foyer of Stockwell station...

..picks up a Metro.

There are no signs of any officers in pursuit.

He is not challenged.

No-one stops him.

We arrived outside Stockwell tube station.

I remember hearing the surveillance officers saying, the suspect was now

in...in...in into Stockwell tube station.

What do you want us to do?

And we didn't hear anything.

We just heard, "Standby. Standby."

Jean Charles then uses his Oyster card to get through

the barriers and calmly walks down the escalator.

There is mounting concern that this is a terrorist

who is about to detonate a device on public transport.

Our radios suddenly came to life.

"He must not get on the tube.

"Stop him from getting on the tube."

And then, my team sergeant said, "State Red. State Red."

Which was our authorisation for deployment.

There were nine officers

inside that foyer of the tube station within 12 seconds.

I had eye contact with C2, brother in arms.

When we reach a State Red,

the firearms teams have full control of that operation,

and it's down to us to decide

how and when we implement whatever tactic we have to implement.

We had a directive,

"Stop him from getting on the tube. He must not get on the tube."

Now what does that mean? Stop, arrest, shoot on sight?

The order was ambiguous.

She says she did not authorise them to shoot,

whereas the officers believed that they were authorised to shoot.

I believed we'd only be deployed

on positively identified suicide bombers.

There was no doubt in my mind

the suspect had been identified,

and that was our authorisation to deploy.

The police radios aren't working underground,

so, at this point, no-one is in communication with anyone else.

The train was held,

armed officers entered the carriage.

A surveillance officer went "That's him."

Jean Charles de Menezes stands up.

And as he stood up,

I just know I'm expecting an explosion at any moment.

They were fully under the impression

that he'd been positively ID'ed as Hussain Osman.

I was 100% convinced that we were all about to die.

100%. That is concrete.

That is it.

I knew I had to take that shot.

It was just a series of unfortunate mistakes

that resulted in the death of an innocent man.

Had the Met owned up to those mistakes,

I don't think anyone would have blamed them.

It was a very febrile time in London at that time.

Two weeks earlier, 52 people had been killed in terrorist attacks.

It was obviously an extremely,

extremely challenging operation.

And they... But they lost control of it.

And worse than that, they were going to allow

an innocent man to die

with no correction of the public record.

When I contacted my bosses and said,

"I've got this story."

I think there was a slight air of disbelief.

It was not my job as a producer to break stories,

I was not an investigative journalist.

But they saw what we had for the first time and jaws hit the floor.

REPORTER: Documents obtained by ITV News show

claims that de Menezes fled from the police,

that he was suspiciously dressed,

and that he was behaving erratically are false.

Documents that point to

a catastrophic failure of the police surveillance operation,

which resulted in a violent and unnecessary killing.

The postmortem report, which we've obtained,

talks of Jean Charles vaulting over the ticket barrier,

of running and then stumbling onto the train.

The problem is, none of it's true.

It just didn't happen the way we were told it happened.

So now it's not just the Met's handling of the shooting incident

that's being called into question,

but its whole handling of events thereafter,

and the release, or non-release, of information.

The family fear that the IPCC investigation,

rather than being a tool to unearth the truth,

is being used as a means of burying it.

Murderers! Murderers! Murderers!

Tonight, the anger over Jean Charles's killing

spilled out to the streets.

Several hundred people marching on Scotland Yard,

surprising the police who had to hastily draft in backup.

REPORTER: Now, the Independent Police Complaints Commission says

that some of the police officers involved

in the shooting could face criminal charges.

It's likely that the report when finished will be sent to

the Crown Prosecution Service for them to consider.

Don't shoot to kill!

Don't shoot to kill! Don't shoot to kill!

I understood the gravity of the situation myself

and the other officers faced.

There was a possibility that we could have been arrested.

Well, the worst case scenario, is being charged.

If you're charged with an offence, your name,

in some cases, your address, date of birth details,

you're public property. Your life is over.

And on top of all that,

you are awaiting, potential, a finding of guilt.

And for something of this magnitude...

..you're probably looking at going inside.

So the ramifications are probably too horrific to even contemplate.

The young cousins of Jean de Menezes wanted

to express their anger to the press before flying back to Brazil

with the corpse of the 27-year-old electrician.

SHE SPEAKS PORTUGUESE

INTERPRETER: What I'm waiting for from the British government,

and what we urge the British government to do is

to punish the officers involved,

because this was a grave criminal error that was committed

against an innocent man.

And I hope that they will employ all force to punish

the people responsible.

Vivian wanted to make clear

their loss is immense,

and they want to know what's happened to the person.

They want to see pictures of the person who shot their cousin.

They want punishment to be served.

He should be incarcerated where he belongs.

The operation to try to locate

the failed suicide bombers was

an incredibly intensive period of work.

GUNSHOTS

INDISTINCT

It's not exactly clear what it is,

but we've now heard four shots coming from

the direction of the flats over there.

The police are moving everybody out in a hurry,

and they don't want people here.

They're worried about people being

in the line of sight of whatever's happening just a round the corner.

Keep going, please! Keep moving back.

A witness was able to provide an identity for the man

at the Oval, and was able to name him as Ramzi Mohammed.

It came as a very pleasant surprise

to find that Muktar Said Ibrahim was also there with him -

the man in the bus.

The investigation is progressing at some pace now.

REPORTER: Earlier this morning army bomb disposal experts rushed

to a flat in Birmingham after a breakthrough in the enquiry.

JOURNALIST: In the early hours,

armed officers broke down the door of a house here.

Inside they found a man with a rucksack.

Within eight days, start to finish,

managed to arrest all of the suspects.

REPORTER: It's emerged that

Italian police have arrested Hussain Osman in Rome.

He's wanted in connection with

the tube attack at Shepherd's Bush.

Hussain Osman's detention completes

the picture of what happened

to the four men suspected of trying

to commit mass murder in London on July the 21st.

When the suspects for the failed bombing

on the 21st were all detained, immense relief.

Immense.

But that was a hard time.

Just gearing up for the investigations

that were going to follow.

And I decide to keep a journal.

Tuesday.

My daughter is constantly waking during the nights

and calling out for me.

When I wake up, I find it very hard to get back to sleep,

and sometimes I find myself rehearsing questions

and answers that I might be asked

in either the interviews or future court appearances.

There's not been a single day passed

without me not thinking about that day

and the events that have unfolded around us.

I would have the most incredible headaches,

I think stress-related, obviously.

Did it affect your relationship? I think it did.

I think it did affect my relationship.

Um... It must have done.

I'd be naive to think that it hadn't, in some way.

It's just like a weeping sore,

the constant speculation,

the constant worry.

But I'm looking at it as if I'm a victim in this...

..so I draw myself back to the family of the person we shot,

because they're the victim,

or the proper victims of it, and I'm...

..I'm suffering, in a way...

..but in no way would I count my suffering as their suffering.

REPORTER: The family of Jean Charles de Menezes,

making the same journey their son made on July the 22nd.

But now there is a memorial at the entrance

to Stockwell station, where Jean Charles was shot

moments after arriving here.

The grief for his parents and brother too much.

A desperate cry for Maria de Menezes,

"Look what they have done to my son!" she wailed.

INAUDIBLE

So, a long way from their small village in Brazil,

the Menezes family stood on

the platform where Jean Charles had got on the train,

where officers had then fired seven bullets into his head,

mistaking him for a suicide bomber.

But the Menezes family say

they won't rest until those responsible for the shooting are

brought to justice.

A key date for us was

the Crown Prosecution Service giving their judgment

whether we were to face charges or not.

It was decided that we would do it away from any police buildings

because of potential doorstepping by the media.

So we went to a location in central London,

and we just waited for the CPS decision.

Good afternoon. A year ago, an innocent 27-year-old Brazilian,

Jean Charles de Menezes, was shot dead by police who thought he was

a suicide bomber.

But today prosecutors have announced

that no individual firearms officers will be charged over his death.

That was a huge, huge relief. Like, unbelievable.

REPORTER: The CPS said

the two firearms officers couldn't be charged

because they genuinely believed he was a suicide bomber.

They acted in good faith.

I wanted to be examined, I wanted to be investigated,

because I acted honestly.

You don't take people's lives...

..on a whim.

Charges will, though, be brought under the Health and Safety Act

against the Metropolitan Police as a whole

for failing to take all reasonably practical steps

to protect Jean Charles de Menezes.

REPORTER: Leaving court today the commander in charge that day,

Cressida Dick.

The jury asked she should not be personally blamed

for what happened.

The Met Police are guilty, but its officers walked free.

REPORTER: Yet Commissioner Blair dismissed calls for his resignation.

I am not going to consider my position

about the events, as the judge described,

of a single day in extraordinary circumstances.

I still speak to people today that think that Jean Charles was shot

because he was acting suspiciously.

That he brought it on himself, essentially.

The truth is Jean Charles was just another...

..Londoner going about their business.

REPORTER: These grainy pictures show the moments leading up

to an innocent being killed by police.

The blue mark is Jean Charles de Menezes.

He was 27,

an electrician catching the tube to work.

But he was wrongly being pursued by undercover officers.

Minutes later, he was dead.

No single officer's ever been prosecuted over Jean Charles' death.

I felt that it was unfair for people to focus

on the guy that shot Jean Charles.

He was just doing his job. He was just doing his job,

as any of us do our job.

And he has to live with that for the rest of his life.

Do you ever think about

what you would say to the family, if you met them?

I don't think...

..I would like to meet them.

At the moment, the person who I shot...

..I can't really remember.

I don't remember any facial features.

So, in a way...

..it's...

..lessened a potential impact it's had on me.

And I don't think I would like...

..to open any closets...

..which would make my life

a bit unbearable.

And I know that sounds really, really selfish.

But that's how I feel.

I've been brutally honest about why we did what we did.

I just hope they are words enough

to explain our actions for that day.