Scotland Yard’s so-called "shoot to kill to protect" tactic to deal with suicide bombers should have been disclosed to the public much earlier, a senior officer said today.

Assistant Commissioner Stephen House was outlining changes to the force's anti-terror strategy at a meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA), which oversees the work of the Met.

The tactic involves police marksmen shooting a suspected suicide bomber in the head with no warning to stop them from detonating their device. It was developed as part of Operation Kratos, the Yard’s strategy to counter suicide terrorists.

The public became fully aware of the tactic's existence only after it was controversially put into practice on July 22 at Stockwell tube station, when armed police officers shot Jean Charles de Menezes seven times in the head. The 27-year-old Brazilian electrician was afterwards found to have no connection with terrorism.

The tactic has been heavily criticised by the de Menezes family, and as a result was being debated at today's MPA meeting. Mr House told the authority that the British public should have been told much earlier, as Kratos was being developed.

"I take on board the criticism that this should have been public knowledge beforehand," said Mr House, who has been overseeing an inquiry to learn the lessons from the disastrous Stockwell operation.

"There is no criticism of anyone involved in the development of Operation Kratos. But now that it has been called into action as a result of the developments, the public must be aware of what's going on."

Earlier, Sir Ian Blair, the Met Commissioner, reminded the meeting that Kratos was developed in response to a new and unprecedented threat, from "circumstances that had never before occurred in the western world, with failed suicide bombers on the loose".

Mr House said that as a result of the shooting of Mr de Menezes, a number of changes had been made.

"We have now moved the responsibility for Operation Kratos from the specialist operations under Andy Hayman, to central operations under myself," he told the authority.

"The sole reason is to allow it to be more openly available. Specialist and anti-terror operations are necessarily surrounded by a certain secrecy."

Three new tactics had been developed for use in combating suicide terror threats, code-named Andromeda, Beach and Clydesdale, he said. "These tactics were not in use in July, they have been developed as a result of that."

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