The family of Jean Charles de Menezes are to claim at least £300,000 damages from Scotland Yard in compensation for the disastrous police operation that led to his death.

Harriet Wistrich, the de Menezes family lawyer, said yesterday that the family would revive its compensation claim in the courts now the inquest into the 27-year-old Brazilian’s death in the Stockwell shooting had returned an open verdict.

She said the family’s claim was for “probably around £300,000”. Senior Scotland Yard officers indicated this weekend that they would not resist the claim. They have previously suggested that the figure they would be willing to pay could be as high as £500,000.

The move came as Ken Livingstone, who was mayor of London at the time of the shooting in July 2005, praised the senior officer in charge of the police surveillance operation that led to de Menezes being shot dead on a train after being mistaken for a fugitive suicide bomber.

Livingstone said Cressida Dick was one of the “most talented” officers he had worked with. “She has an incredible record and I hope that her career continues to progress in the police because I have always considered she has commissioner potential,” he said.

Livingstone cast doubt on the testimony of witnesses to the shooting who contradicted evidence given by police marksmen that they had shouted “armed police” to de Menezes before shooting him dead with seven bullets.

Livingstone said he was “tempted to trust” the marksmen’s testimony even though the jurors had dismissed their claims that a warning had been shouted and that de Menezes had walked towards them in a threatening manner before he was killed.

Critics of the Met have expressed astonishment that the two most senior officers in charge of the bungled shooting operation have been promoted and have not faced any disciplinary action.

Both Dick and John McDowall, the yard’s “gold commander” for the Stockwell operation, have been promoted to the rank of deputy assistant commissioner since de Menezes died.

In a briefing in front of 50 senior Scotland Yard officers two months after the shooting, Dick received a standing ovation for her actions on the day of the operation.

“It was deeply worrying that we gave a her a standing ovation when an innocent man had been shot dead under her watch in very dubious circumstances,” one of those present said.

Gareth Peirce, another member of the de Menezes legal team, said Dick was responsible for 25 “serious and catastrophic” failures that had contributed to the killing.

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