Emily Mortimer to play Cressida Dick in show about Jean Charles de Menezes death

Independent

18-02-2025

Actress Emily Mortimer is to play Dame Cressida Dick before she became the head of the Metropolitan Police, in a new drama about the shooting of a Brazilian man wrongly suspected of being a terrorist after the 7/7 London bombings.
Jean Charles de Menezes was killed a fortnight after suicide bombers exploded devices on three Tube lines and a London bus on July 7 2005, killing 52 people.
Mr de Menezes' parents and other relatives are serving as consultants for Disney+ series Suspect: The Shooting Of Jean Charles De Menezes.
Mortimer, known for family film Paddington In Peru and US drama The Newsroom, will portray the senior officer who led the police operation in which Mr de Menezes – played by Edison Alcaide in the show – died.
Dame Cressida was promoted to Metropolitan Police Commissioner in 2017, before leaving the role in 2022.
A jury cleared her of any blame in the 27-year-old's death at the end of the prosecution of the Met under health and safety laws.
The cast also includes Irish actor Conleth Hill, best known as the manipulative Lord Varys in hit show Game Of Thrones, as then Met commissioner Ian Blair, who led the force between 2005 and 2008 before becoming Lord Blair of Boughton.
Being Human star Russell Tovey plays deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick, who later became Liberal Democrat peer Baron Paddick, who resigned in 2007 after a dispute with the Met in the wake of the shooting at Stockwell station.
Mad Dogs and Bodies actor Max Beesley is cast as assistant commissioner Andy Hayman, who led the Met's investigation into the bombings, and Line Of Duty star Daniel Mays takes on the role of Cliff Todd, the principal forensic investigator in the aftermath of the events of 7/7.
Gavin And Stacey actress Laura Aikman stars as Lana Vandenberghe, an admin assistant turned whistleblower at the then Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), which was later replaced by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC).
Ms Vandenberghe handed confidential documents to ITV News, revealing that Mr de Menezes had done little to arouse suspicion before he was gunned down.
The IPCC Stockwell Two report claimed that Lord Blair of Boughton was 'almost totally uninformed' after the shooting and Mr Hayman 'misled' senior officers by failing to tell them the dead man was not one of the four bombers.
The Crown star Alex Jennings is taking on the role of barrister Michael Mansfield KC, who represented Mr de Menezes' family at the inquest into his shooting, for the four-part drama.
Writer and executive producer Jeff Pope said: 'This is an incredibly important story to tell, and we've got a heavyweight ensemble cast in place that will help us examine the events that led to the tragic shooting of the innocent Jean Charles de Menezes.
'He was just a commuter who was tracked for nearly an hour, with surveillance failing to correctly identify him, before he was shot dead on a crowded Tube train, leaving his family to try and shine a light on the critical errors that led to this devastating tragedy.'
The inquest jury returned an open verdict into the shooting, and concluded police marksman, dubbed C12, did not shout the words 'armed police' before opening fire, and a number of failings by that contributed to Mr de Menezes' death.
At the time, Sir Paul Stephenson, then acting commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said the force accepted 'full responsibility' for the death of electrician Mr de Menezes.
Suspect: The Shooting Of Jean Charles De Menezes was written by Pope, who was nominated for an Oscar along with Steve Coogan for their screenplay Philomena, produced by Kwadjo Dajan and directed by London To Brighton director Paul Andrew Williams.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the 7/7 bombings, in which 52 people were killed and more than 770 others injured.
Sky has made a documentary called 7/7: Britain's Day Of Terror, the BBC released 7/7: The London Bombings earlier this year, and in 2024 Channel 4 put out Shoot To Kill: Terror On The Tube.
In the Channel 4 programme, firearms officer C12 claimed he was certain 'we were going to die' if he did not act.
– Suspect: The Shooting Of Jean Charles De Menezes will air on Disney+ in spring 2025.