A SPEAKER’S CORNER

The new information about Jean’s visa irregularity has come late and smacks of an attempt to give justification to Jean’s reason to run. Other details have emerged from the coroners inquest revealling that the official version of events is wrong on yet another count – he was in fact shot eight times: seven times in the head and once in the shoulder.

Yesterday the authorities were telling us that Menezes was a legal immigrant who had been here for three years. Now we are told Jean had been in the UK on an out-of-date student visa. Some feel this claim is controversial given that he only recently returned from a prolonged visit to Brazil. Any visa irregularities would almost certainly have been picked up at immigration, who are particularly hot on Brazilian illegals, for whom London is a favourite destination. There have been protests in the UK and Brazil into the shooting, an official inquiry will be launched and the family are obviously highly emotional, talks of sueing authorities are unconfirmed.

Human rights lawyer Imran Khan called for a radical change in policy on shoot-to kill tactics.

“There’s been a mistake, mistakes have been made; my fear is the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police is saying that this could potentially happen again,” he said.

“Now what does that do to the community, the community is not going to be confident in a police force that admits it can make mistakes.”

Labour peer Lord Ahmed warned that illegal immigrants would try to run away if challenged by police.

“And whilst we need to catch those illegal immigrants or asylum seekers, nevertheless we can’t shoot them because they’re not terrorists,” he said.

Next time it’s probably going to an innocent muslim youth and the backlash that’ll ignite is not worth thinking about. The police obviously have an impossible job on their hands, they are indeed only human. At this time they must be highly professional in their attitudes, investigations and actions. I hope this can be achieved and think it demands that in return the public offer them respect and patience.