THE widow of Harry Stanley, the Scot shot dead by marksmen while carrying a table leg, has joined the family of Jean Charles de Menezes in a campaign to end the police’s shoot- to-kill policy.

Irene Stanley, 52, will join de Menezes’ cousin in London next week to present a letter to Downing Street calling on Tony Blair to reverse the policy. She is also backing the family’s call for Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner, to resign.

De Menezes, 27, a Brazilian electrician, was shot dead in a bungled shoot-to-kill operation in July after being mistaken for a suicide bomber.

Stanley, 46, a painter and decorator, was shot as he walked home in Hackney, east London, in 1999 after the table leg that he was carrying in a bag was mistaken for a shotgun.

Last week the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decided not to prosecute the two police officers who killed him. The decision followed two inquests and two police investigations.

Stanley, who now intends to take her case to the European Court of Human Rights, said that she hoped her experience could help the de Menezes family in their fight for justice.

“When I heard what had happened on that Tube I thought of Harry lying in the corner dead,” she said.

“My heart went out to the family. I knew how they felt and it brought it all back for me. I thought it sounded like an execution.

“When I met the family they thought they were alone. They couldn’t believe that something like this could have happened before.

“I said to them: I have come to support you and your family. We decided we would support each other and that it was important. It’s so hard at the start because you are still grieving and you have all the anger.”

Stanley met the de Menezes parents, Maria and Matozinhos, and his brother Giovani two weeks ago. Both families attended the rally in London where they were joined by the relatives of other police shooting victims. They included Susan Alexander, whose son Azelle Rodney was shot dead in the back of a car in north London in April.

Stanley said that the decision by the CPS not to prosecute the marksmen who killed her husband had made her even more determined to fight the shoot-to-kill policy.

“The ruling has just made me more determined,” she said. “I’m not going away and if I never get justice for Harry at least I will have tried to change something by campaigning.

“My husband was killed before the increased focus on terrorists. This has been going on for years and it should be stopped. Why didn’t they shoot him in the knee? If they had not shot to kill he would have been alive today.”

The two marksmen, Kevin Fagan, 38, and Neil Sharman, 42, had been arrested on suspicion of murder, manslaughter, gross negligence, perjury and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. The CPS decided not to prosecute them after an American ballistics expert provided evidence that Stanley had not been shot in the back.

The case has already been the subject of two inquests, gone to the High Court twice and prompted a series of investigations by Surrey police.

Next week the Stanley family’s lawyers will meet to decide what action they will take next. Daniel Machover, Irene Stanley’s lawyer, said that a private prosecution was unlikely because of the costs involved. However, he said that the family could apply for a judicial review of the decision by the CPS to drop some of the charges.

He added that the family is most likely to pursue the case through the European Court of Human Rights, claiming that the shooting breached article 2 of the European convention on human rights, which guarantees the right to life.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission could still take disciplinary action after examining the evidence from the investigation by Surrey police.

De Menezes’ parents returned to Brazil last week but his cousin, Alessandro Pereira, is running the campaign in Britain.

Last week the Metropolitan police commissioner said that he may be forced to resign over the botched operation that led to de Menezes’ death.

Lawyers representing the family have claimed there was a “fatal delay” in starting the official inquiry and senior officers have warned that it will reveal a “horror story” when it is completed before Christmas.

At least 10 officers involved in the shooting are understood to have been served with police disciplinary notices. They include the marksmen from CO19 who fired 11 bullets at de Menezes after he boarded a train at Stockwell Underground station. Senior officers may also face manslaughter charges.

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