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Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes

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Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes

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Summary

The Penguin Lessons screenwriter Jeff Pope examines the fatal shooting of innocent Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes in a gripping four-part drama, which consulted with de Menezes' parents and other relatives. On July 22, 2007, 27-year-old Charles de Menezes (Edison Alcaide) is on his way to work, unaware that a terrorist cell has failed to carry out an attack to rival the 7/7 bombings. A Metropolitan Police covert surveillance operation led by Commander Cressida Dick (Emily Mortimer) is urgently looking for the suspects. De Menezes is misidentified as a terrorist and armed police shoot him dead at Stockwell station. The family's fight for justice poses difficult questions to Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair (Conleth Hill) and Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman (Max Beesley). As the police force is engulfed in the scandal, Independent Police Complaints Commission secretary Lana Vandenberghe (Laura Aikman) bravely speaks out and Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick (Russell Tovey) fights to dispel the disinformation and expose the tragic truth.

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Review

Frances Taylor

This is the kind of drama that used to reliably air at 9pm on a Sunday on ITV1: a four-part series depicting a real-life tale of injustice, starring Conleth Hill, Russell Tovey and Emily Mortimer. Rather than terrestrial broadcasters, increasingly it’s streamers where these very British stories (see also Toxic Town and Adolescence on Netflix) are now finding a home.

Electrician Jean Charles de Menezes was making his way to work, like millions of other Londoners in the wake of the 7/7 terrorist attacks, when he was shot and killed by Metropolitan Police officers. The catalogue of failings and incompetence that led up to the events of 22 July 2005 were covered brilliantly by the BBC Two documentary 7/7: the London Bombings (available on iPlayer).

Here, they are pored over efficiently and often unflinchingly. It’s startling how quickly fiction became fact following the tragedy and how — 20 years on — many inaccuracies still percolate. Hopefully, this will go some way to definitively righting those wrongs.

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7.7/10

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rolenameDirectorPaul Andrew Williams

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Season 1

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