Family condemn Menezes decision

Mr Menezes was shot seven times in the head at Stockwell station

The family of Jean Charles de Menezes have condemned the decision not to prosecute individual police officers over his death as "ridiculous".

Mr Menezes's cousin, Alex Alvez Pereira, said the decision "did not make sense".

The Metropolitan Police said it was disappointed to be facing health and safety charges over the Tube shooting.

And Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) member Damian Hockney condemned the decision as "a tragic mistake".

I just found this a shame to take so long to show something so incompetent Alex Alvez Pereira

Mr Pereira told a news conference in London he was disappointed.

"It's unbelievable what they sent to us today because we had to wait for a year and it was a hard year for us.

"And they sent something ridiculous to show us. And there's a lot of contradiction. And it doesn't make sense the decision that they took.

"And I just found this a shame to take so long to show something so incompetent."

Decision 'shameful'

Cousin Patricia da Silva Armani, who lived with Mr Menezes in London, said: "I am very disappointed, I was expecting a negative reply and it is shameful."

She said the police had treated her cousin like a "dead animal".

She told reporters: "The authorities, in reality, they did not have any shame. I feel sickened by that."

In a statement the Metropolitan force said the shooting of Mr Menezes was "a matter of very deep regret".

It said: "We acknowledge and support today's decision by the Crown Prosecution Service not to charge any officer with criminal offences for their part in the events of 22 July.

"While we still need to consider carefully any disciplinary matters we are pleased for the officers and their families who have faced much uncertainty over the last year."

[The prosecution] will only serve to put the police on the defensive for a long time, hampering any attempt to learn the lessons of last year, and could impact on how effectively the police can protect us Damian Hockney

London mayor Ken Livingstone questioned the decision to prosecute the force, saying: "I doubt that al-Qaeda will be considering the implications for health and safety legislation when they are planning their terrorist activities.

"Health and safety legislation was simply not drawn up to deal with policing a city facing the terrorist threat of July 7... and it makes absolutely no sense to apply such legislation in the case of such an extreme situation."

The MPA said it was "surprised" at the decision to bring health and safety charges.

'Tragic mistake'

Authority member Mr Hockney welcomed the decision not to prosecute individuals, saying it was clear Mr Menezes's death was "a tragic mistake".

But he said prosecuting the force under health and safety laws would not satisfy those who believed the police should not be prosecuted and would look like an "insult" or "cover-up" to those who thought they should be.

He added: "It will only serve to put the police on the defensive for a long time, hampering any attempt to learn the lessons of last year and could impact on how effectively the police can protect us."

But Liberal Democrat MP for North Southwark and Bermondsey Simon Hughes said the prosecution would be helpful.

"The Metropolitan Police will have to explain themselves and it will be a way of setting a standard in the future of balancing the interests of the individual citizen who is caught up in this sort of event and the general need for the police to be able to protect us against terrorism."

The burden of responsibility on the police service to avert further attacks was tremendous, and on that fateful day that burden was passed on to a few individual officers who will have to live with the consequences of their actions for ever more Jan Berry

Glen Smyth, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said he was pleased individual officers would not face charges, which he said was the right decision.

He said: "The fact individual actions and the way that they fell led to this incident doesn't amount to the criminal standard of proof that people had acted unlawfully."

Shami Chakrabarti, director of campaign group Liberty, said the CPS announcement would not restore public confidence.

She told BBC News: "We still don't have the account of what happened. The IPCC [Independent Police Complaints Commission] report is still not in the public domain.

"And the thing that causes me greatest concern is that these mechanisms, IPCC, CPS mechanisms are there partly to do justice for the Menezes family but they're also partly there to achieve and restore public confidence in policing at such difficult times."