Jean Charles de Menezes family lose human rights challenge

The family of Jean Charles de Menezes have lost a human rights challenge over the decision not to charge any individual police officer over his death.

Relatives of the Brazilian took their case to the European Court of Human Rights last year — almost a decade after he was mistaken for a suicide bomber and shot dead by police marksmen on a London Tube train.

Lawyers for the family argued the assessment used by prosecutors in deciding that no individual should be charged over the shooting is incompatible with Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which covers the right to life.

However, in a judgment yesterday, the Strasbourg court’s Grand Chamber found that UK authorities had not failed in their obligations under the article to conduct an effective investigation into the shooting which was capable of identifying and, if appropriate, punishing those responsible.

Judges found that Article 2 did not require the evidential test used to be lowered in cases where deaths had occurred at the hands of state agents.

Lawyers for the family claimed the evidential test applied by the Crown Prosecution Service — that there should be sufficient evidence for a “realistic prospect” of conviction — is too high a threshold.

It means, in effect, the decision not to bring a prosecution was based on a conclusion there was less than a 50% chance of conviction, they argued.

The court did not consider the test constituted a failing in the prosecutorial system precluding those responsible for Mr de Menezes’s death being held accountable.