SIR IAN BLAIR has broken his holiday to be at his desk at Scotland Yard today to face a fresh crisis, as the Crown Prosecution Service puts his force in the dock over the Stockwell shooting.

Ken McDonald, the Director of Public Prosecutions, is expected to announce that none of the 11 officers at the centre of investigations into the death of Jean Charles de Menezes will be charged, but the Metropolitan Police will face a corporate health and safety prosecution for bungling the counter-terrorist operation that led to his death and in its duty of care towards him.

Sir Ian returned from a family holiday abroad after the CPS issued a warning last week that the announcement on charges is due today.

As Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police he has to receive formally any summons from the CPS that would be answerable at a Central London magistrates court.

Police sources were forecasting yesterday that police would not challenge a decision to prosecute under the Health and Safety Act 1974 but that there would be a “vigorous defence” that would include putting the death of Mr de Menezes in the context of events that day.

Police marksmen fired seven shots into the Brazilian electrician’s head on July 22 as he was held on the floor of a Tube train after being followed and mistakenly identified as one of four would-be bombers who had targeted the transport system the previous day.

Scotland Yard is also waiting for more information from the Independent Police Com- plaints Commission, which investigated the shooting, because police expect that some of the 11 officers will face disciplinary charges for misconduct. The IPCC also has to decide what action should be taken over the alteration of a Special Branch surveillance log after the shooting that was changed to suggest that there were doubts that Mr de Menezes was the suspected terrorist.

At the weekend the de Menezes family and supporters indicated that disciplinary charges would not be enough, and said that they expected officers to be charged and may take legal action against the CPS.

But some observers say that health and safety charges would be a shrewd move because they would mean a full public disclosure of events and policy on the day Mr de Menzes died and would remove the pressure for a public inquiry.

Within Scotland Yard there is fury over the prospect of a case that could take months and is unlikely to start until next year. One source said: “What other police force in the world would have to face a health and safety charge for trying to save its citizens from terrorism?”

The CPS took advice from Clare Montgomery, QC, considered one of the keenest brains at the Bar, and senior lawyers are understood to have decided that charges including manslaughter against individual officers would be difficult to sustain. Instead, health-and- safety charges would target the catalogue of blunders blamed on “systems and procedures” that killed Mr de Menezes.

Not only would Sir Ian face cross-examination in court but he could also be joined by a string of senior officers. Andy Hayman, assistant commisioner in charge of counter-terrorism, and Alan Brown, assistant commissioner in charge of operations across London on the day, might be among witnesses.

The 11 officers who were warned with notices that they might be charged — including Commander Cressida Dick, who supervised the operation that led to Mr de Menezes’s death — could also be called.Police expect that the architects of Operation Kratos, the “shoot-to-kill” policy for dealing with suicide bombers, would have to come to court to explain the strategy.

Today Mr de Menezes’s cousins, Alessandro Pereira, Vivian Figueiredo, Patricia da Silva Armani and Alex Pereira. are expected to appear alongside the family’s lawyers and members of the Justice4Jean campaign group to give their reaction to the CPS decision. Mr de Menezes’s parents have decided to remain in Brazil.

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