Pizzas galore!

Charlie 2, who said he did not hear any shots before he opened fire, said his gun jammed as he unloaded six shots. Mr Hilliard asked: “Can you explain why you fired six shots?” Charlie 2 replied: “At the time I fired I believed that I, and everyone else, was about to die."

The court has heard that Mr de Menezes was shot seven times in the head.

Asked why he put the gun to his head he said: "I was so close because I didn't want to shoot the surveillance officer. He was between me and the subject. I knew C12 was there, I knew that there were members of the public on the Tube and I just could not afford to miss.That's why I got so close."

The officer, who said he had never before fired at a suspect, then described getting a stoppage on his gun that he had to clear.

"The important thing here is to remain calm," he said before telling how he corrected the problem.

The coroner said, Sir Michael Wright, said: "So, you had to actually reload the gun manually?"

"Yes sir, I cleared the stoppage manually and then carried on firing.

"At the time I fired I believed that I and everybody else was about to die. From my position - I am sorry, this is not pleasant what I am describing - I knew I could not access the brain stem and could not be certain that I could achieve instant incapacitation with one shot so I had to make sure that life was extinct.

"Because I had had a stoppage I was not sure if I had lost any rounds in the process."

After the shooting he shouted for everyone to get out and was covered in blood.

"I put on my police cap and noticed that I had blood on my gun, on my hands, on my arms, my face and all over my clothes."

When he learnt he had shot an innocent man the next day he told the inquest that he was "deeply shocked" and it was against everything he had trained for and the fact that he had killed an innocent man was something that he thought about every day.

The inquest continues.

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