Family plan de Menezes tribute

8:05am Tuesday 22nd July 2008

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Relatives of Jean Charles de Menezes will renew their "struggle for justice" as they mark three years since the Brazilian was shot dead in a catastrophic error by police.

The family will hold a vigil at Stockwell tube station before unveiling a flag made of 1,096 flowers near the Houses of Parliament.

The tribute, to be place at Old Palace Yard, will bear the statement "Menezes - Three Years, No Justice" to display the family's anger that no individual officer has taken responsibility for the 27-year-old Herne Hill resident's death.

Mr de Menezes, an electrician, was shot dead by counter-terrorist police who mistook him for suicide bomber Hussain Osman.

The Metropolitan Police was convicted on a general health and safety count at the Old Bailey in November last year.

Friends and family will gather for a minute's silence at 10.03am - the precise time he was killed in 2005 - before attending a second event in Westminster.

A spokesman for the Jean Charles de Menezes Family Campaign said: "It is 1,096 days since the shooting and yet the family are still no closer to having anyone held responsible for the individual and corporate failings that led to Jean's death. This is nothing short of a public scandal and should shame politicians into action."

The event comes as their lawyers prepare for his inquest, which begins in September. It will be the first opportunity his family have had to ask their questions of the police officers involved in a court of law.

Last week, a scrutiny panel from the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA), revealed progress on improving the force's surveillance procedures since the shooting had been too slow.

The report said there were still a number of unanswered questions, and it could not be right that, after three years, there was still no definitive account of what happened that day.