Sir Ian Blair, Britain's most senior police chief, has admitted that Scotland Yard made a "serious mistake" in failing to correct misleading stories about the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes.
The Metropolitan Police Commissioner, whose conduct in the aftermath of the shooting is the subject of an official inquiry, said his force "could have put the record straight" about a number of issues.
It failed to because officers were "transfixed" by the hunt for the four suspects involved in the alleged attempted bombings the previous day.
Early reports suggested that Mr de Menezes had been wearing bulky clothing and that he vaulted a ticket barrier at Stockwell Tube station and ran down an escalator to escape police firearms officers.
These were not contradicted until three weeks later when documents leaked to ITV News revealed that the 27-year-old had walked into the station at a normal pace and even paused to pick up a free newspaper. He was also clad only in a light denim jacket.
The family of the innocent Brazilian later wrote to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) to complain that this misinformation had been allowed to circulate after his death. Their letter of complaint also named Sir Ian and accused him of having misled them and the public.
A second IPCC inquiry, known as Stockwell Two, is now examining those allegations, but in an interview Sir Ian acknowledged that Scotland Yard had made a "bad mistake" in not correcting the false reports.
His comments were made in an interview with The Guardian in November, but only published for the first time ahead of the first anniversary of his commissionership later this week.
Sir Ian told the newspaper: "Clearly the Met could have taken the decision on the Saturday when we recognised that we had killed an innocent man, we could have put the record straight. Although we did put the record straight by saying he wasn't connected, we didn't put the record straight about all the issues around him, jumping over barriers and heavy coats and so on...
"In a terrible way, the Met was transfixed on other things. It was transfixed on: where are these bombers? And therefore, in a dreadful way, we didn't see the significance of that. That was our mistake. It was. It was a bad mistake."
PA