The destruction of a reputation through the media is a tactic we have seen before when serious police errors have come into the public domain. Duwayne Brooks, the witness to Stephen Lawrence's murder, suffered years of arrests, on charges from rape to stealing a car (his own), but they were always dropped or thrown out of court. It is no surprise then that Mohammed Abdul Kahar, shot last June in his home in Forest Gate, east London, by police looking for a dirty bomb, got the full treatment.
The family was reported as living it up in expensive hotels before the police let them move back into their home; Mr Kahar had reportedly spat at soldiers in their barracks, saying he hoped they would "die in Iraq"; then he was arrested on suspicion of making pornographic pictures of children on the computer he had bought second hand to study maths and English. The decision at the end of last month not to bring any charges received none of the tabloid fanfare that greeted the original claims. Mr Kahar has been unjustly branded first a terrorist and then a paedophile. His whole family has suffered "irreparable damage", his sister Humeya told me.
Mr Kahar today is traumatised, struggling with lost confidence, sleeplessness, flashbacks and guilt for his mother's distress. Until June he was a cheerful young man working for Royal Mail, where he had been through a vetting procedure and signed the Official Secrets Act as a driver/collector of material from such places as banks and police stations. He was able to manage this workload despite being dyslexic.
The media and the police were looking for an Islamist extremist far from Mr Kahar's profile. "I'm Asian, with a long beard; that's all they had against me," he told me this week. "I prayed at work and at home, hardly ever went to the mosque, and my friends are mainly non-Muslims, schoolfriends and neighbours."
Mr Kahar's life changed dramatically when 15 officers in chemical suits burst into his home and shot him. The bullet entered his chest and exited through his shoulder, and the wound is still very painful, restricting his movement. But the Royal Mail has been loyal to him, and he is on sick leave.
Mr Kahar and his brother were released without charge after a week of questioning about extremist groups they did not recognise. At a press conference Mr Kahar described how a police officer shot him at close range, and he was then kicked, hit on the head and dragged into the street before being given first aid. Hours after the press conference, the Metropolitan police assistant commissioner Andy Hayman issued an apology.
But today Mr Kahar regrets the press conference, and feels it sparked police and media persecution of his family. The child porn allegations retraumatised him, he says, and he feels paranoid and vulnerable. He rejects the Independent Police Complaints Commission report into the shootings, which his solicitors have criticised. Two IPCC reports into aspects of the raid are pending. The porn allegations also need an inquiry. Mr Kahar's libel lawyers stalled negotiations with two newspapers about their coverage of the raid when the spinning of the child porn allegations began. The negotiations will now be reactivated.
Seven years after the Macpherson report found the police to be institutionally racist, this case deserves the personal attention of the Met commissioner, Sir Ian Blair. As for the intelligence services, who gets demoted for the shoddy work that led to Forest Gate? MI5 says it is investigating 30 major terrorist plots. With Forest Gate as an example, it can expect scepticism.
Victoria Brittain, the co-author, with Moazzam Begg, of Enemy Combatant: A British Muslim's Journey to Guantánamo and Back.