Jean Charles de Menezes’ parents are acting as consultants for Disney+ drama recreating their son’s final moments before he was mistakenly shot dead by anti-terror police
- The drama has been criticised by 7/7 survivors for recreating the terror attacks
The parents of Jean Charles de Menezes are acting as consultants for a Disney+ drama about his final moments before he was mistakenly shot dead by anti-terror police.
The Brazilian’s mother Maria and father Matozinho have agreed to participate in the making of Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, which includes a dramatic recreation of their 27-year-old son’s death.
He had been gunned down by Metropolitan Police officers after he was misidentified as a terrorist after jumping the barriers at Stockwell Tube station on July 22, 2005, just two weeks after the 7/7 terror attacks.
Disney says it has brought the electrician’s parents onboard to advise producers, while other relatives are thought to have been brought in, including his cousin Vivian Meneses Figueiredo who was de Menezes’ flatmate when he was killed.
Vivian, a British citizen who is now married with a daughter, spoke movingly in an interview three years ago about the tragedy as she revealed she was never able to set foot again in the apartment they shared in nearby Tulse Hill.
She also admitted to crossing the road for years after the killing to avoid police, who repeatedly apologised to the victim’s family and gave his parents a settlement payout of about £100,000 in 2009.
Jean Charles de Menezes’ mother Maria Otone de Menezes, and father Matuzinhos da Silva, have agreed to act as consultants for a Disney+ drama about their son’s death. Pictured: The couple outside the Independent Police Complaints Commission in 2005
Jean Charles de Menezes (pictured) was mistakenly shot dead by anti-terror police in Stockwell Tube station on July 22, 2005
An actor portraying the 27-year-old was seen walking outside the same station last month for filming of the drama
The drama Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, seen here being filmed in London last month, will recreate the moment the electrician was killed
Scenes showing the moments leading up to his death were filmed at Stockwell Tube last month, with actors portraying the Brazilian and undercover police officers seen running into the station.
One witness told MailOnline: ‘The Tube station was open that day. People were coming out as actors ran towards the entrance and put on police caps. They may have no idea what was going on. It looked terrifying.’
Transport for London (TfL) told MailOnline filming had been agreed beforehand and, while the station wasn’t shut, posters had been put up around and inside the station to inform customers filming was taking place. It added that all actors were unarmed, with no prop weapons, and it had granted permission after families and survivors of the attacks were consulted.
READ MORE HERE: Fury as Disney recreate 7/7 terrorist attack in London which killed 52 people – including image of mangled red double decker bus that shocked the world – for new TV drama
There is already fury amongst 7/7 survivors and families of the dead after Disney+ began filming a new drama series depicting the terror attack. Victims of the four suicide bombings that rocked the capital in July 2005 said the highly realistic sets showed ‘a lack of respect’ to the 52 killed and the hundreds wounded.
The sets included a replica of the No 30 double decker bus blown up in Tavistock Square. Photographs from the set showed the production team have recreated the shattered bus, along with blood spattered across nearby pavements and upturned bus seats.
Online support groups for survivors of the four suicide bombings linked to the subsequent shooting have been adamant no-one contacted them before filming started.
Survivors of the 7/7 London bombing have described the show, filmed by ITV Studios for the Disney streaming service, as ‘shameful.’
It was reported overnight Disney executives, whose highly-realistic sets for the series also including a replica of the shattered No 30 double decker bus with blood spattered across nearby pavements, were deciding whether to axe some scenes because they ‘threatened its family friendly image.’
A source told the Sun: ‘Nobody seemed to have realised the sensitivity around recreating such horrific events in full view of the public.’
The actor playing Jean Charles walks into Stockwell Tube Station – the same one where he was shot dead on a train on July 22, 2005
In extraordinary scenes filmed two weeks ago, actors playing police sprinted into the station
A witness described seeing men running from cars and towards the station
One actor dons a police cap and gives chase through the streets of London
CCTV still showing Stockwell Station moments before Jean Charles De Menezes was shot
He did not know police were chasing in after him (CCTV of the incident pictured in 2005)
This is the shocking recreation of the bombing of the Number 30 bus (pictured) at Tavistock Square – mocked up in central London for a Disney+ show on 7/7 that has caused fury amongst victims and their families
A floral mosaic unveiled to mark the anniversary of the fatal police shooting of innocent Jean Charles de Menezes
Michael Henning, a 57-year-old broker who suffered injuries to his face and eye and is part of an online group of survivors, said: ‘These things have to be done with taste, decency, and dignity.
‘I would implore them to keep everyone informed as this is such a sensitive subject and can cause deep distress.’
Publicly Disney has come out fighting to say the series was ‘a factual dramatisation of events’ and insist the series had been carried out with ‘utmost sensitivity and respect,’ even though some survivors have accused them of distorting facts.
READ MORE HERE: Moment innocent Jean Charles de Menezes was mistakenly shot dead by police is recreated for Disney + drama
One standout image showed a barefooted woman in a burn mask, taken outside Edgware Road Station in 2005 although Disney’s production places her at Tavistock Square.
Survivor Daniel Biddle, the worst-injured survivor of the bomb attacks who lost both legs, an eye and a spleen, has condemned Disney’s ‘twisting of facts’ as ‘barbaric.’
He said: ‘People died in horrendous ways and for that to be blatantly disregarded is sick.’
Disney has not expanded on the consulting roles of Jean Charles’s parents and other relatives, and whether they have advised show-makers of their knowledge and feelings about the police shooting itself or only his life in London leading up to his killing.
Three of the four 7/7 suicide bombers – Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, Shehzad Tanweer, 22, and Hasib Hussain, 18 – left Leeds in a rented car bound for Luton where they picked up 19-year-old Germaine Lindsay before heading for the centre of London.
The four attackers went after rush-hour commuters as they set off the explosives in their backpacks between 8.49am and 9.47am.
Jean Charles headed to Brixton completely unaware that surveillance officers were sat on the same bus as him (pictured in the TV series)
The explosion that tore through the bus was recreated (pictured), along with blood spatters across nearby pavements and torn up bus seats
The infamous image of a young woman being rushed through London’s streets with a burn mask was also recreated for the show being filmed at the moment (pictured), called: Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes
The image above appears to be a recreation of Paul Dadge (right) helping injured Tube passenger Davinia Turrell (left) away from Edgware Road tube station in London following an explosion symbolised the bravery and chaos of the day in 2005 (pictured)
This is the scene in Tavistock Square when the real 7/7 terror attack happened in 2005
Several actors depicting injured victims were seen
Disney said none of the actors (pictured) on set were representing any specific individuals
Mr de Menezes was followed by officers from his home to the tube station working on the basis he appeared to match the description of a bombing fugitive.
His family led a long campaign calling for police officers to be prosecuted for the shooting and criticising Scotland Yard for its handling of the operation, which was led at the time by Dame Cressida Dick who went on to become Met Police Commissioner.
READ MORE HERE: Jean Charles de Menezes’ family slam ‘offensive’ appointment of Cressida Dick as Met police chief after she ran operation which killed innocent Brazilian
No police officers were ever charged and a challenge to the Crown Prosecution Service’s refusal to prosecute, brought by the victim’s cousin Patricia Armani da Silva, was rejected by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg in March 2016.
Vivian told in her emotional interview with the Sunday Mirror in July 2020 how they had chatted two nights before her hard-working cousin died when she cooked his favourite Mexican chilli, rice and salad.
She revealed he had met a girl he liked and confided in her he wanted his ‘dream wedding’ to be ‘super traditional.’
Recalling the moment she found out he was dead after going to a police station to seek answers because officers had visited their flat while she was out, the 40-year-old said: ‘It was a nightmare. My world fell apart.’
She also spoke of her sadness at her cousin missing her marriage to Brazilian Marcelo Oliveira in 2012 and the birth of their baby Luna in 2019.
Adriana da Silva Lima, who dated Jean Charles for years and followed him to London before heading back to Brazil because she was homesick, said at the time of his death: ‘I still cannot believe that something like this has happened with police in a first world country. It seems like Brazil.
‘They’ve taken away the future and the dreams of a young man who wanted to help his family and break away from a country where he was struggling to study and find work.
‘I know the British are living a terrifying nightmare because of the terrorist threat.
‘But nothing justifies the way Jean was killed. And nothing’s ever going to bring him back.’
Speaking to the BBC from her home in Gonzaga in the state of Minas Gerais in 2015 Jean Charles’ mum Maria said: Two days before he died, I dreamt about him.
‘I was lying on my bed and he came towards me all of a sudden, but didn’t say a word. And I did not have time to tell him anything either.
‘When I woke up, I told my husband ‘something very bad is happening to Jean’
‘I never thought I would see myself burying my son because this goes against the natural order of life. It still causes too much pain.’
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