An Old Bailey jury will be sworn in today to try the Metropolitan Police for alleged failures in the operation that led to the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes.

Scotland Yard has been charged with putting the public at risk in its conduct of a surveillance operation on July 22 2005 - the day after four men attempted to carry out suicide bombings on the transport network.

All the bombers had escaped and the search for them was the biggest manhunt in British policing history.

The surveillance operation at issue in the trial went badly wrong and ended with Mr de Menezes, 27, a Brazilian electrician, being followed onto a Tube train at Stockwell by firearms officers.

Suspecting that he was a suicide bomber, the officers shot him eight times in the head.

The trial, which is expected to last for six weeks, will focus not on the shooting of Mr de Menezes but on the chain of events which led to his being killed.

The charge against the Met falls under the public safety clauses of the Health and Safety at Work Act.

It states that the force “failed to conduct... the surveillance, pursuit, arrest and detention of a suspected suicide bomber, and the prevention of a suicide bombing, in such a way as to ensure that ... members of the public, including Jean Charles de Menezes, were not exposed to risks to their health and safety”.

The charge has been brought against the Office of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis but it is understood that Sir Ian Blair, the commissioner, will not be called as a witness.

Sir Ian was criticised in a recent report by the Independent Police Complaints Commission for being unaware for 24 hours that his officers had mistakenly shot Mr de Menezes on July 22.

The “Stockwell 2” report concluded that Sir Ian had been "almost totally uninformed about the post-shooting events" and did not know for 24 hours that an innocent man had been shot.

The IPCC rejected an allegation of misconduct against Sir Ian and concluded that he did not intentionally mislead the public. Its report found, however, that there were "serious weaknesses" in the way in which the Met was run under his command.

This week’s prosecution stems from a separate investigation by the IPCC into the shooting of Mr de Menezes. The report produced by that investigation, known as “Stockwell 1” has never been published.

It was referred to the Crown Prosecution Service which decided against bringing murder or manslaughter charges against officers but charged the Met with the offence for which it will be tried this week.

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