The revelation that undercover Met officers spied on the family of Jean Charles De Menezes after they murdered him, leaves me utterly appalled.
You have to consider this in the context of the lies that the Met assiduously spread about De Menezes – that he entered the tube without buying a ticket, that he vaulted the ticket gates, that he ran away from officers, that he was wearing a bulky jacket.
All of these were lies. In truth the poor man had entered the tube normally and legally, walked calmly and sat down with a free newspaper. He wore a short tight denim jacket. Then totally without any cause or justification from his actions whatsoever, his murderers shot him multiple times in the head. Just because his Brazilian complexion looked a bit Arab.
I can think of no category of lie worse than that told by a murderer against the reputation of their victim.
The police did everything they could to mislead the media, planting lies and encouraging stories they knew to be untrue. Personally I find it extremely suspicious that numerous CCTV cameras were found not to be working, and have little doubt that the police destroyed that evidence.
There can be no other motive for spying on De Menezes’ family than either the hope of gaining information to feed to the media to discredit the man they murdered, or to attempt to pervert the course of justice.
They did not have to worry – their were plenty of others to pervert the course of justice for them, including the DPP and above all, Sir Michael Wright, as disgusting a piece of scum as ever sat on an English bench, who directed the inquest jury that they could not return a verdict of unlawful killing. (I was delighted to find that, when I googled Sir Michael Wright, my article on him came high on the first page. Is that result tailored by Google for me, or is it general?)
The recent revelation that the Met spied on Menezes’ family sparked very little public interest. It should. It is a still more appalling outrage than the Murdoch press hacking Millie Dowler. At least the Murdoch gang had not actually murdered Millie Dowler themselves. The De Menezes family were being spied on by their son’s and brother’s murderers.