BRITAIN:The London Metropolitan Police have been urged to issue a high-profile apology to two families involved in the "terrifying experience" of last year's Forest Gate anti-terror raid.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) yesterday upheld only a small number of 150 complaints lodged by members of the two households. These were conducted by police believing they were on the trail of a high-explosive device capable of being detonated by remote control.
Mohammed Abdul Kahar (23) - who was accidentally shot in the shoulder during the raid - and his brother, Abdul Koyair (20), were released without charge a week after the failed police operation. Nine members of their family who were never arrested were also taken to a police station, where they thought they had in fact been detained.
The IPCC acknowledged that both families and the wider community would be disappointed that no individual officers were to be disciplined as a result of its investigation. However, commissioner Deborah Glass said she had concluded that the level of force used had to be judged in the light of the officers' belief they were facing "an extreme lethal threat" to themselves, the public and the occupants of the two houses themselves.
Concluding that the police were right to launch the raid, Ms Glass said that although the intelligence was later found to be wrong, police had had "no choice" but to act on it and that the resultant "forceful and aggressive" police tactics were "inevitable given the threat police genuinely believed they faced".
However, Ms Glass said that when innocent people were injured or "publicly branded as terrorists" the police should make "an equally high-profile public apology".
She also said police could and should have changed their response once in control of the situation following the raids in Lansdowne Road, east London, and suggested officers involved in future anti-terror operations should also plan for circumstances in which their intelligence proved to be wrong. The commissioner also said police should do more to explain to local communities how they evaluate intelligence in deciding to mount anti-terror operations.
Deputy assistant commissioner Alf Hitchcock of the Met's diversity and citizen focus directorate said he was happy to reiterate three apologies the force had already made. But he insisted: "We need to move on from repeating our apologies over and over again and need to learn the lessons around community engagement." Assad Rehman, chairman of the Newham Monitoring Project, an anti-racism group, dismissed yesterday's report as "a whitewash".