BRITAIN: The London Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Ian Blair was told yesterday that his resignation would not be accepted as the force braced itself for a new report criticising it over the shooting dead of an innocent man in an Underground station.
Len Duvall, a Labour politician who chairs the Metropolitan Police Authority, said he would not let Sir Ian quit over the shooting dead of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell station in south London two years ago: "If he offered his resignation over Stockwell I would not accept it."
Insiders say the force is "very concerned" about its leader coming under more pressure next week when the official report into errors made by the Met - as the Metropolitan police is known - that led to De Menezes being shot dead is published by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).
The IPCC's report, scheduled to be published on Thursday, will say the commissioner's actions risked damaging public confidence in his force.
It will say that blocking the independent investigation gave officers an opportunity to tamper with evidence.
Sir Ian tried to stop the IPCC investigating the July 2005 shooting, despite the law saying the watchdog must do so.
He ordered his officers to block IPCC investigators from having any access to the scene, and the commissioner only backed down after the Home Office refused to support him.
Sources who have seen the report say it is "awful" for the force and fear more damaging publicity when it is released next week.
The criticism of Sir Ian is only a small part of the report which also details failings the force made that led it to kill an innocent man as it hunted for suicide bombers who had tried to attack the London's transport system the previous day.
At Scotland Yard yesterday Sir Ian and his senior officers surveyed the universally negative press coverage about the guilty verdict after the trial at the Old Bailey central criminal court in London.
One said: "This is the worst day so far." The force's watchdog, the Metropolitan Police Authority, may hold an emergency meeting after Conservative party members formally wrote to its chair to demand one."
Another senior source, again seen as an ally of Sir Ian, said: "It will go on through the weekend, and next week the IPCC publishes its report and that will provide more bad stories, and then you have a countdown to the meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority.
"The feeling is the coming weeks will be awful and that's before you get to the inquest."