London's often controversial police chief Ian Blair was cleared today of lying to the public about the shooting of an innocent Brazilian man but the case has once again raised questions about his leadership.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) ruled that Blair had not deliberately given misleading information to the media in the aftermath of the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes, who officers had mistaken for a suicide bomber.
While Blair was cleared of wrongdoing, his reputation has still been bruised with De Menezes' family saying the IPCC's report showed that his job was untenable.
Since taking charge in February 2005, the Oxford-educated Blair has been unpopular with segments of the press and his own rank and file who accuse him of being too politically correct, dubbing him the "PC PC" (police constable).
He has also been accused of making a number of high-profile public blunders.
In January 2006, he labelled Britain's media "institutionally racist" because it treated the murder of whites and ethnic minorities differently.
He compounded that by saying "almost nobody" could understand why the media had given so much coverage to the murder of two schoolgirls, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, in 2002 in the quiet village of Soham in central England.
In the furore that followed, Blair "unreservedly apologised" for his comments.
It was against this background that his comments over the shooting of de Menezes were scrutinised and some media reports alleged he had ordered a cover-up.
The shooting took place on July 22, 2005, the day after four men had tried to set off suicide bombs on London's transport system in a bid to replicate the devastating attacks of two weeks earlier which killed 52 people.
Blair and other official police statements had wrongly suggested that the Brazilian electrician had been acting and dressed suspiciously, and had refused to comply with police commands.
"I'm sorry these mistakes occurred," he told reporters after the release of the IPCC report. "Despite much speculation to the contrary I did not lie to the public."
However, embarrassingly for the Met Police Commissioner, the IPCC found that Blair had been kept in the dark by senior colleagues about the investigation.
In the hours after the shooting, officers at Stockwell underground station in south London where de Menezes was gunned down after boarding a train, had found his wallet and a phone which suggested he was not one of the suspected suicide bombers.
However this information was not relayed to Blair, even though the IPCC said a "great number" of officers were becoming aware that the shooting was a mistake, including some who were watching a cricket match at Lord's.
When Blair left Scotland Yard on the evening of July 22, the IPCC said he was "almost totally uninformed" about the emerging details from Stockwell.
"Why did Ian Blair not know anything?" said de Menezes' cousin Alex Pereira.
"What kind of chief is he that (he) does not know anything, does not see anything?"
The findings that Blair was not told of events by senior members of staff, including his own advisers, has fuelled suggestions of discontent among some officers.