There is little to distinguish platform 2 at Stockwell Tube station from any other stop on the London Underground network.

It is grimy, swept by gusts of wind and echoes noisily to the sound of clacking heels, squealing brakes and control room announcements.

But at 11.20am yesterday this platform became, for a few moments, a precinct of Southwark Coroner’s Court as the jury examining the death of Jean Charles de Menezes visited the place where he died.

A police spaniel, trained to sniff out explosives, was taken along the platform and a large contingent of police officers sealed off entrances and exits.

The last time platform 2 witnessed a big police operation was at 10.06am on July 22, 2005, when Mr de Menezes, 27, a Brazilian electrician, was shot seven times in the head by officers who thought he was a suicide bomber.

The court party of lawyers, officials and jurors was driven the short distance from the Oval cricket ground in South London, where the court is in special session, in a convoy of coaches and police escorts.

Led by Sir Michael Wright, the retired judge sitting as coroner, they entered the station by a side door and emerged behind the ticket barriers.

By doing so they avoided the main entrance that Mr de Menezes had used and the shrine that has become a minor London landmark. The memorial, adorned with prayers and decorated with flowers, candles and photographs, has been a focal point for the Justice4Jean campaign.

The visitors took the escalator to the platform. Mr de Menezes had used the same one three years and two months ago, pursued minutes later by a firearms squad. The group remained on platform 2 for less than a minute.

They were accompanied by members of the de Menezes family, including the dead man’s cousins, Patricia da Silva Armani and Alex Pereira.

After leaving Stockwell station, the party was taken to East London, passing Leman Street police station where the Metropolitan Police’s CO19 specialist firearms teams are based.

The coaches then retraced the route taken by the armed officers on the morning of the incident. They went via New Scotland Yard, where a senior antiterrorist officer had joined the firearms team and then to Nightingale Lane police station in Clapham. At a briefing there, the firearms officers were told they were hunting four suicide bombers, “deadly and determined” terrorists who had tried to detonate bombs the day before.

The next stop was a Territorial Army base near Mr de Menezes’s home in Scotia Road in Tulse Hill, South London. This was to have been the firearms team’s base until it was called to Stockwell amid confused reports that Mr de Menezes had been identified as one of the bombers.

At Scotia Road, the jurors left their coach to look around before being driven slowly back towards Stockwell along the route of the No 2 bus taken by Mr de Menezes.

The inquest resumes today.

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