A police watchdog’s report on the fatal shooting of the Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes has been delivered to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) today.

The CPS is to consider whether to bring criminal charges against any of the police officers involved in the shooting.

Mr de Menezes, 27, was shot seven times in the head by anti-terror officers at Stockwell Tube station in south London on the morning of July 22 last year after being mistaken for a suicide bomber.

It will now be up to the CPS’s lawyers to decide whether to charge any police officers in relation to the shooting, which came a day after the alleged July 21 attempted bomb attacks on the London transport network.

If the Independent Police Complaints Commission's report has decided there may have been criminality - which requires a much lower threshold than that for bringing charges - its report could include a list of the alleged offences, each attached to the names of individual officers.

The commission has refused to detail the nature of the alleged offences which the CPS could potentially have to consider, although it is believed they could be as serious as murder or manslaughter. It has also refused to comment on the number of officers interviewed, although reports have previously claimed it is around ten. However, it has confirmed that Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, was not among those interviewed by the investigators.

The IPCC will be required to send a copy of its report to Scotland Yard and the Metropolitan Police Authority, which oversees the force, and to the Inner South London coroner John Sampson, who will ultimately hold the inquest into Mr de Menezes’s death.

At the discretion of the chairman of the IPCC, Nick Hardwick, the report may be sent to the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke. Mr de Menezes's family will not receive a copy of the report but their legal representatives will be notified before there is any public confirmation of the IPCC’s decision.

It could be years before the commission's report into the shooting is published as any criminal proceedings, possible appeals and then an inquest, must take place first.

The IPCC did not begin its investigation until Wednesday July 27 - five days after Mr de Menezes was shot dead. Mr Hardwick revealed last month that a meeting had taken place on the Monday (July 25) between himself, Sir Ian, the Home Secretary and other officials at which it was determined that the IPCC would take charge. Scotland Yard was said to have "initially resisted" the IPCC taking over the inquiry, but Sir Ian later dismissed allegations of a cover-up.

Documents leaked to ITV News in August cast doubt on much of what was previously believed about the shooting and highlighted what Mr de Menezes’s supporters claimed were a "catalogue of disasters". The documents appeared to suggest that Mr de Menezes had done little to arouse suspicion before he was shot dead at Stockwell Tube station, other than to emerge from a flat that had been under surveillance.

There are a total of 30 witnesses to the shooting and 600 statements have been taken during the course of the investigation. Mr de Menezes’s family have also complained about the conduct of Sir Ian and a second IPCC investigation into their allegations is under way.

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