‘Suspect' writer Jeff Pope on his 7/7 drama: ‘I think that the Met still has questions to answer'

Time Out

30-04-2025

Londoners tend to remember where they were on 7/7. A coordinated series of suicide bombing attacks across the city's transport network – one of the biggest attacks on British soil since the Blitz – its traumatic aftermath lasted throughout the summer of 2005.
For screenwriter Jeff Pope – at a primary school that day, helping his son with a project when the news came through – it wasn't the attack itself that piqued his interest, but what followed. Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes is Pope's gripping recreation of that tumultuous period in London's recent history. The four-part Disney+ drama is set in the aftermath of 7/7 and follows the lead-up to another, abortive Islamist attack on July 21, 2025, and the killing of an innocent man, Jean Charles de Menezes (played by Edison Alcaide). The Brazilian electrician was mistaken for a terrorist in a blundering Metropolitan Police operation and shot dead on a Victoria Line train at Stockwell Station a day later.
At least, that's part of the story – and it's recreated in vivid, often upsetting detail. But for Pope, the plot thickened significantly in the ensuing days. The Met's top dogs, commissioner Ian Blair and the head of its counter-terrorist operation Cressida Dick, presided over a cover-up and a smear campaign against de Menezes. It was reported that he'd been acting suspiciously, wearing heavy clothing on a hot day and vaulting the barriers at the tube station. That he was a drug user who'd once committed sexual assault. It was, as Suspect explores, an attempt to gaslight an entire city – and it worked. To a point.'The second half of this miniseries is about [the Met] trying to tell us that what happened didn't happen,' says Pope. 'It has done a lot in its history to make us look the other way.'
What was the starting point of this story for you?
I didn't think about 7/7 in terms of a drama, because where was the drama? It was Islamic terrorists deciding to wreak havoc on the UK and that had been dealt with brilliantly in documentaries. When a producer friend of mine started to talk about John Charles, I had the same thought: (his killing) was an awful mistake, but it was kind of his fault because he jumped the barrier and ran down stairs, he behaved suspiciously and had bulky clothing on. But none of that happened – he didn't vault any barriers, he didn't run, he wasn't wearing any bulky clothing. As I started to dig into it, it wasn't what I remembered. I get that the Met was under a lot of pressure and was stretched like never before at that time, but the operation was poorly planned, poorly executed and it ended in the death of a completely innocent man.
You show how misinformation could go viral even in the pre-Internet era. The idea that de Menezes vaulted the barriers seeped into our collective subconscious.
Totally. If it happened now, the first thing people would do is get their phone out and film it. Most of the CCTV of Jean Charles on his way from his flat to the station has gone. There's a good explanation for [each of the things that have gone missing], but it's when you push it together again and again and again there's [a lot of] CCTV footage missing in the immediate post-7/7 era.
We often think about the London Underground as a place of safety and refuge during the Blitz, and this show sort of turns that on its head. What was your relationship the location?
I wrote a scene where there's an Asian guy on his way to work and everyone's looking at him. He turns the bag upside down and empties everything out: bag of crisps, laptop, and there's nothing in there. I vividly remember that feeling – of fear, because of what had happened, versus the politeness that we suffer from Londoners and as Brits. I remember how unfair it was for any Asian guy, God forbid, having a rucksack on the tube for years after 7/7. Like you say, in the war it was a place where Londoners could be safe, and that was turned on its head.
The opening shows the aftermath of a 7/7 tube carriage. How did you recreate that?
The design team were meticulous, and there were images that we could look at of the carriage that morning. It's very difficult to film in London – It's incredibly expensive and it's a huge city, so it's difficult to shut roads down and get into the tube system to shoot this stuff, but we were determined to make it as realistic as possible.
I think that the Met still has questions to answer
When you recreated the shattered bus from Tavistock Square, people complained that it showed disregard for the victims. How do you respond to that?
We were in contact with victim support groups and we wrote to the 7/7 families a number of times to let them know what our plans were. We leafleted the area and told people what we were going to be filming. It's triggering, we get that, and we took our responsibilities to those affected by 7/7 very seriously, but it felt important to have that [shot] because it was the iconic image. The audience would look at that and know exactly where they were.
Adolescence has recently shown the power of drama to start debates. Do you see Suspect as a live story that will make it back into news columns?
I think the whole point of this series is that something went badly wrong at the Met that morning. In the 20 years, they've never properly owned up to that, and that is incredibly relevant now. In my opinion, something similar happened with the murder of Sarah Everard by Wayne Couzens. Ian Blair and Cressida both used the word 'regret' a lot in the aftermath of the death of John Charles. 'We regret what's happened.' Of course, you regret it – I'm sure his mother regrets it – but there's no culpability attached to regret. I think they still have questions to answer.
A lot of young Londoners won't remember 7/7 and its aftermath. What do you hope they take away from Suspect?
It's like my generation watching a Second World War movie – you're taken back to a time which is alien to you. It was dystopian: the entire city was locked down, everyone was scared to get on a tube train, and there were these bombers running amok. And beyond that, there are bigger themes around the truth. Because people weren't open and honest about what happened that day, it's been 20 years of agony for the de Menezes family. It's painful to them that people still think that he must have been a bit of a tearaway – he must have been involved in something. He was a young bloke, an electrician, an incredibly hard-working, completely regular guy, looked after his mum, and sent money home. He just wanted to go to work that day.
He would have had no idea what was going on in the moments before his death. As a writer, what was it like to put yourself in his shoes in that moment?
It haunts me. What I think happened is that he's sitting there wondering why the train is stuck at the station, then a bloke dressed in civvies bursts in and he's thinking, 'Who's this bloke? He's got a gun.' Bang. Police say that they shouted a warning – 'armed police!' – but 17 members of the public said they heard no warning.
How did you go about avoiding any Four Lions comparisons with the terrorist characters?
We did not want to reduce them to clichéd automatons – we wanted them to have a life and personalities. They go and play six-a side football. We took a lot of care with a scene where one of them is with his wife and they have three young boys. We tried to flesh them out so they weren't cartoon baddies.
De Menezes was a young bloke and he just wanted to go to work that day
One of the heroes of the story is police deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick, played by Russell Tovey. He stands up against the cover-up. Did you spend much time talking to him?
I spent a lot of time with Brian. He's an inspirational figure in many respects: he was the first senior police officer to come out; he was borough commander when he called to legalise cannabis; and he's a man who is really interested in the truth. I hadn't realised this but Russell, who's also gay, idolised Brian. He was a massive help to us. We asked to speak to Ian Blair and Cressida Dick, but they declined.
What do you want people to take from Suspect?
I hope they get angry. Anger is an energy. Look at Mr Bates vs The Post Office, look at Adolescence – we want to wrestle with stuff. It's in our psyche more than just about any other country I can think of.