Menezes stand-off 'not expected'

Commander Dick said she had been 'in control'

The commander of the operation that led to Jean Charles de Menezes' death said she did not think a stake-out of his flat would lead to a confrontation.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick said she wasn't expecting a bomber with a sack "fizzing with explosives" to emerge from the south London block.

She told the trial of the Metropolitan Police she had been in control and had not suffered from anxiety.

The Met faces health and safety charges over the Brazilian's July 2005 death.

Mr de Menezes was mistakenly shot dead by armed police in Stockwell Underground station on 22 July 2005.

'No anxiety'

The Metropolitan Police denies breaching health and safety laws by failing to take proper steps to ensure the public were safe from a suicide bomber.

Prosecuting, Clare Montgomery QC asked Commander Dick about the operation outside flats linked to one of the 21 July suicide bombers, a building which Mr de Menezes also lived in.

The court had previously heard surveillance officers had surrounded the property on their own because specialist firearms officers were too far away.

Ms Montgomery asked Commander Dick to describe the "Plan B" in the event of armed teams not getting to the flats in time to stop a bomber.

'Rucksack fizzing'

"Someone could have come out of the address with a rucksack fizzing with explosives and get on a bus within two minutes," said Ms Montgomery.

"But someone coming out of the flat with a rucksack fizzing with explosives was not a likely scenario," said the police chief.

"It was extraordinarily remote, very remote. It was undoubtedly a possibility but we did not know what someone [a failed suicide bomber] would do.

"We did not know the strength of their link to the address. We did not know whether they intended to cause further explosions.

"My judgement was that it was not a likely scenario that one of these people would come out again, let alone intent on causing an explosion."

Control room

Commander Dick, then the officer in charge of a shoot-to-kill policy against suicide bombers, denied describing her operations room as "appalling".

The comment in notes to another officer was "off-the-cuff" and referred specifically to the first hour of the morning, she said, rather than events after she had established command and control.

She denied knowing surveillance officers had complained that their armed counterparts were nowhere to be seen.

But she accepted that it was going to be extremely difficult to stop a would-be bomber should he get on a bus.

"I'm not anxious," she added. "I rarely get anxious, I do not have anxiety."

Ms Dick was asked about her decision not to close a bus stop outside the flats.

Clare Montgomery QC, prosecuting, said it appeared that other senior officers had given orders to close it, in her view because they feared Mr de Menezes was a suicide bomber intent on attacking public transport.

These are professional people who deploy urgently very, very often and I did not ring up and say 'Where are they, where are they?' Cressida Dick Deputy Assistant Commissioner

Ms Montgomery said: "It is inconceivable that you were properly in control of your control room."

Ms Dick said what had happened was "not ideal", adding: "It is not what I would like, making that level of decision without me being informed.

"If they did make that decision I was not informed.

"I don't think it means I was out of control."

'Professional people'

Ms Dick was also asked what she knew about the whereabouts of firearms teams after they had been deployed to the flats.

She said that when she asked at about 7.30am, she was told they were on their way to a briefing.

"These are professional people who deploy urgently very, very often and I did not ring up and say 'Where are they, where are they?' she said.

"That I did not - and do not - see as my role. I had silver [tactical] commanders appointed. It is their role to see that people are briefed and that they get to where they need to be quickly."

Ms Dick said she asked again about the teams' location at about 9.30am when it appeared Mr de Menezes was heading for the Tube.

She was "encouraged", she told the court, when her tactical firearms adviser, codenamed Trojan 80, told her that officers were "making their way as quickly as they could".

The trial continues.