The Insider keeps her respect for the Met despite recent events
The Insider has followed with interest the prosecution for breaches of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, and the Metropolitan Police’s “catastrophic series of errors” leading to the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes on 22 July 2005 at Stockwell tube station.
The Met was fined £175,000 and ordered to pay £385,000 costs after an Old Bailey jury found it had breached health and safety rules and failed in its duty to protect members of the public in the killing of the Brazilian electrician, innocent of anything but having the misfortune to live in close proximity to a genuine suspect whom he allegedly resembled.
Various august personages and Ken Livingstone have come forward to say the findings are a disaster for London and will severely hamper attempts to combat terrorism in the capital. The Insider is not so sure about that. The prospect of a health and safety prosecution hovering over any armed police bod with his finger on the trigger might be a very good thing. Ask Celia Stubbs, Blair Peach’s girlfriend.
Certainly, if the police’s suspicions of de Menezes were of sufficient pith to explain, if not justify, the decision to shoot him in the head seven times, their decision to let him board the tube defies comprehension.
Yet the Insider does not seek to damn the Met, and certainly not the officers on the ground. In the face of what happened in London on 7 July 2005, and what nearly followed on 21 July 2005, they would have been mad to have let it happen again a day later.
facing reality
The reality of this situation was brought home on a recent flight from Milan to London. On the internal flight from Naples to Milan nothing happened, save that the Italian pointed out a large petrochemical refinery a few minutes from landing, as exactly the sort of target al-Qaeda might select if it ever turned its attentions to Italy. Perhaps that planted the seed.
After a fraught hour battling across Milan airport—in itself not an enormous edifice but you try it toting a week’s dirty laundry, 20 kilos of Amalfi lemons and a pumpkin the size of Jeremy Clarkson’s head—we boarded the connecting flight home, the Italian taking the window seat and me the middle. Our fond hopes of nobody taking the aisle seat were dashed when a middle-aged Mediterranean gentleman in Western attire sat down, his Egypt duty free carrier bag between his feet.
a nervous passenger
He began reading the Koran—nervous flyer, thinks I. Then he left his seat and luggage, disappearing towards the rear of the plane. As the doors had not closed I speculated whether he might leave without his bags. The more reasonable explanation that he was indeed nervous and was visiting the lavatory, or as a Muslim friend has since suggested, that he may have been performing ablutions before prayer, did not prevail.
Having begun to get nervous, his peculiar body movements—that suggested imminent nausea—and, once we had taken off and the seat-belt lights had dimmed, his second disappearance to the rear of the plane, did not help, especially as he stood next to the emergency exit, not exactly playing with the big handle that would send him to oblivion and depressurise the rest of us into very unhappy bears indeed, but within touching distance thereof. Of course, he may just have been worried about deep vein thrombosis—on a flight barely longer than an hour?
I was getting very antsy indeed, as was another lady across the aisle, with whom a Cissie and Ada exchange of “what’s he up to?” followed. The passenger in seat 20C then resumed his place as the trolley came towards us, and he kept looking towards the front of the plane, which of course he could not reach because the trolley was in his way. Or maybe he was just really keen to get his Alitalia Mars bar and Coke.
escalating panic
I asked the Italian, sotto voce, if he could tell the steward, in Italian, that we had concerns, which he refused to do. The words “Nervous Nerys” may have been used.
After the trolley passed, matey was back on his feet, again taking position adjacent to the big handle. To make matters even more interesting he appeared to be letting on to various other passengers on the plane in a “now, lads!” sort of a way. Or maybe his party had not been seated together and he was making sure all was well.
Your intrepid reporter took this opportunity to alert the steward, saying that it was probably nothing and giving the feeble example of his having the temerity to use the toilet without Home Office permission. The steward said he’d keep an eye, had a brief word with the captain via intercom and switched the seat-belt sign back on so that we all had to remain seated into
Heathrow.
I had my biro ready to inflict enough pain to stop anything nefarious, and Walter Mitty headlines—“Angel of flight 337: ‘I was just doing what any heroine would do’”—fought with more realistic versions—“Disgraced lawyer castrates peace envoy with Bic pen: ‘I was only going for my sandwiches!’ pipes UN delegate”.
An Overreaction?
By way of postscript, as I was getting a grade A1 rollicking in terminal 2 from the Italian, the lady across the aisle came up and thanked me for speaking out because the passenger concerned was behaving so oddly and had his chest shaved “like they do”. Or perchance he was naturally bare-chested as many men from the Mediterranean are.
Complete overreaction? Probably. I doubt any genuine terrorist would have been put off mass mayhem by a fasten your seat-belts sign. I can only tell you I was genuinely concerned, as were other passengers, and that the crew evidently decided better safe than sorry. Had an air marshal had been aboard and had used terminal force it would certainly have been on my conscience, so perhaps you’ll understand why I won’t be throwing any eggs at the Met this week.
Jennifer James is the Insider
