Bang, bang - whoops, sorry!

So the CPS have decided there should be no prosecutions against any individual police officer for the killing a year ago of Mr Menezes in the mistaken belief that he was a suicide bomber. As one who, admittedly many years ago, studied law, I find this a strange decision, and probably one motivated more by political than legal considerations. Murder, when you strip it down to its essentials, is the intentional killing of another person, and you couldn't get more intentional than what happened to the unfortunate Mr Menezes. So the only possible defences the officers concerned could have are justification or necessity. But these are both common law defences, and as such should properly be matters for the courts to rule on, but the CPS have decided that they shouldn't be given the chance. This, I'm afraid, will forever leave a nasty taste in the mouth that this is more about not wanting the full facts about what happened that day brought out in court and exposed to cross-examination. There are so many questions that we now probably never will know the answers to. Certainly a health and safety prosecution is unlikely to satisfy anyone.