De Menezes was the 53rd victim of 7/7

The moment, in late July 2005, when it was revealed that the man shot dead by police at Stockwell Underground station was not a bomber, but a young Brazilian electrician, was hugely depressing. For weeks Londoners had been hoping that the authorities would be able to catch any more would-be mass killers, and prevent another set of explosions, and another sequence of sad stories and funerals. The 7/7 bombers had been quickly identified; in the wake of the unsuccessful attacks two weeks later, we had hoped for the same thing. What we got was what we could least deal with - fallibility.

Though the jury at the De Menezes inquest was not given the option by Sir Michael Wright, the coroner, of returning a verdict of unlawful killing yesterday, the way that they answered his key questions about what led to the shooting, reflected badly on the Metropolitan Police.

“Did firearms officer C12 shout armed police?” Answer: No.

“Did Mr de Menezes stand up from his seat before he was grabbed in a bear hug by officer Ivor?” Answer: Yes

“Did Mr de Menezes move towards C12 before he was grabbed in a bear hug by Ivor?” Answer: No.

Had the jury believed the evidence of the police officers involved, all three answers should have been “Yes”.

This was important because it suggested, as Nick Hardwick, chairman of the Independent Police Complaints Commission, said yesterday, that De Menezes had no chance whatsoever to save himself. He was more or less doomed from the moment that police misidentified him as Hussain Osman, one of the 21 July terrorists. Also, when offered the choice between competing recollections of the police and those of witnesses, the jury chose not to believe the police.

Then there was the obvious belief on the part of the jury that police errors were substantially to blame. Sir Michael had asked them to evaluate whether certain factors played a role in the tragedy. In general the jury fingered those elements that were controlled by the police, such as the failure to get a better photographic image of Osman and poor communication, but rejected those that represented inherent limitations on the police, such as the general problem of providing identification in a short time. And they gave the answer “cannot decide” to the question of whether “pressure on police after the suicide attacks in July 2005” was partly to blame.

This last conclusion, though possibly legalistically correct is, in my opinion, wholly historically wrong. And if we imagine to ourselves that there will be a way of avoiding such a tragedy again under similar circumstances, then we are deluding ourselves.

The killing of 52 ordinary travellers in the suicide bombings of July 7 was particularly unnerving because the attackers, unlike 9/11's assortment of self-imported Saudis and Egyptians, were home grown. It meant that our bombers were already here, and could not easily be recognised. Even so, for those who weren't directly affected, it seemed unlikely - as with 9/11 - that one attack would be followed swiftly by another. But two weeks later, on July 21, another series of bombings was attempted, and all of the bombers escaped. The BBC's security correspondent Frank Gardner said that weekend that “there was a high probability the bombers still had access to explosives and that they wanted to use them”.

One of the unsuccessful bombers, Hussain Osman, was caught on CCTV running through Oval Underground station. And it was believed that he had exited the system at Stockwell. By the next day police had identified where he lived, and when de Menezes appeared from the same building, they identified him as Osman. They were confused and unsure.

In the emergency operations control room, Room 1600, they proceeded on the basis that the man who was now being followed was indeed Osman. When de Menezes, exactly as they feared Osman might, headed for Stockwell station, they were contemplating a possible explosion. With specialist firearms officers not yet in place, the job of stopping the imagined Osman fell to the lightly armed surveillance officers. At the first sign of movement from him (the jury concluded) they demobilised him, and then shot him.

Bad policing? To see how confused the circumstances were I went back to the first accounts of the Stockwell shooting. The BBC reported a Mark Whitby as describing “an Asian guy” in a heavy coat with the look of “a cornered fox” running on to the train and tripping, before being shot. Anthony Larkin, told BBC 5 Live that he saw “this guy who appeared to have a bomb belt and wires coming out and people were panicking and I heard two shots being fired”.

Since July 2005 aspects of police procedure have, apparently been improved. The training is better, the communications equipment is better, and - of course - everyone is hideously aware of what can go wrong. But sometimes it seems to need restatement that the police did not set out that morning looking to kill an innocent young man. In the circumstances of July 22 they took the decision they did because, in essence, the possibility of killing an innocent man seemed preferable to the possibility of allowing a bomber to blow up a train.

And even if communications were improved it is easy to see similar circumstances occurring again, and the same instant dilemma facing ordinary officers. If they were to be mistaken the other way, then there would be 40 bereaved families looking for explanations, including their own.

So when the jury said it couldn't decide whether the pressure on police following the suicide attacks, was a contributory factor, that was a conclusion that no historian or psychologist could possibly accept. Take away the bombs of 7/7, take away Hussein Osman, and Jean Charles de Menezes would almost certainly still be alive. The police may have made mistakes, and may even have given false evidence, designed to make them appear less culpable. But I - and I suspect many Londoners - believe that the young Brazilian was the 53rd victim of the London bombers.

David Aaronovitch