What the Menezes family don't seem to realise yet is that police officers on duty are never brought to justice for killing a member of the public. Even when inquests give a verdict of unlawful killing, and individual police officers are actually prosecuted, they still seem to get off scot free.The Menezes family's lawyers have said the handling of the case has "the appearance of a stitch-up" and amounted to a breach of his family's human rights and "A message is sent out that police officers can kill with impunity."

This has all the dimensions of a State conspiracy. The group Liberty say that the current system of investigating such deaths is often 'ineffective, secretive, slow and insufficiently independent'. That being so you would expect something better when the matter is actually brought to court but no. There seems to be an inbuilt protection for police officers within the legal system. At the very worst they merely lose their job in exchange for the life they have taken and at best they get a few weeks or months on paid leave.

A recent development is the Corporate Manslaughter Bill, which seems to provide explicit protection of the police from prosecution.

 http://inquest.gn.apc.org/pdf/INQUEST_corporate_manslaughter_briefing.pdf

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6208836.stm