Ian Blair - 'clear' (aka 'liar')

According to yesterday's Observer, Ian Blair's lies have been given support by another top Scotland Yard liar officer, Deputy Assistant Chief Commissioner Alan Given. Given confirmed Ian Blair's ad nauseam claims that he did not know until the morning after the murder that de Menezes was innocent and that an innocent man had been summarily executed by hitherto unknown marksmen.

Just prior to the renewed support for Ian Blair from Alan Given another related story was making the news, only this time with a slightly conflicting version of events to that of Ian Blair.

Last Thursday it was reported that a senior officer had told Independent Police Complaints Commission investigators that Sir Ian's private office team believed the wrong man had been targeted just six hours after the shooting. It appears the officer that made this claim about Blair's team was Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick who acted as the Met’s chief spokesman during the events of July. For some, Paddick is the one of the few senior policemen from whom the British People received anything close to the truth in relation to the events that occurred that month.

The latest round of lies in support of Ian Blair's claim that he was ignorant of the facts carries with it the suggestion that Brian Paddick was lying about who knew what when. Other reports state that the story as told by Paddick is corroborated by other witnesses who are understood to have told the IPCC that knowledge of de Menezes' innocence was quite widespread in the Met within hours of the shooting.

Unsurprisingly, Paddick is now having discussions with libel lawyers and very good luck to him with his efforts against the liars. Thus far in his career, Paddick has previously been in the firing line for the various crimes of daring to admit to being gay, for adopting a sensible approach to Cannabis use in Lambeth, and for openly admitting on the Urban 75 message boards that he found aspects of anarchy and anarchism appealing (with the proviso that law and order were necessary in some capacity). Now he's in the firing line for trying to tell the truth.

For anyone still a bit confused about who knew what and when, here's how to figure our the answer to the killer question: Is Sir Ian Blair (and anyone who supports his version of events) lying?

One need only look to the date of the letter Ian Blair sent to Sir John Gieve in the wake of the murder of an innocent man. The letter asked that the IPCC be given 'no access to the scene at the present time'. The result was that the IPCC investigation (Stockwell 1, which bizarrely didn't include Blair's own actions in its scope) was delayed for six days, thereby denying the IPCC access to crucial evidence.

Ian Blair's letter to John Gieve was dated 21 July 2005, a day before de Menezes was executed and two days before Ian Blair says that he knew an innocent man had been executed.

When the letter was published after a freedom of information request it was issued with a caveat that: 'The letter is incorrectly dated 21st July. It should have been dated 22nd July when it was delivered.' July 22nd is the same day that de Menezes was executed. So it would appear that Ian Blair knew exactly what happened on the day it happened and Brian Paddick is the only senior officer that appears to have any interest in telling the truth. Not only that, but the evidence to prove this exists in the public domain and has done since the publication of Ian Blair's rather carelessly dated letter delaying the IPCC inquiry.

As is the way with such matters, those who are deemed to be standing in the way of the official myths becoming 'facts' can expect the State's customary hatchet job and character assassination to be attempted.