JEAN Charles de Menezes was the victim of “terrible and extraordinary circumstances” and his death was an "awful tragedy", a top cop claimed today.

But Deputy Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick, who led the operation that killed the innocent man, has insisted none of her officers did anything wrong.

Ms Dick said a series of “unfortunate” coincidences were to blame as she gave evidence to the inquest into the shooting of the Brazilian electrician.

Shot ... Jean Charles de Menezes

These included the fact he lived in the same block of flats as failed July 21 suicide bomber Hussain Osman and that Mr de Menezes looked “very like” him.

Ms Dick also said the fact that the first surveillance officer was “indisposed” and only got a short glance at him did not help.

Mr de Menezes, 27, was shot seven times in the head at Stockwell Tube station in south London on July 22, 2005, by police marksmen. He had been mistaken for an on-the-run terrorist.

Ms Dick led the Scotland Yard control room overseeing the pursuit of the Brazilian by surveillance and firearms officers who feared he was Osman.

Asked what went wrong, she told the inquest: “One thing that clearly went wrong was that we as a nation did not manage to prevent those attacks on July 7 or indeed Hussain Osman and others’ attacks on the 21st.

Extraordinary

“Mr de Menezes was the victim of some terrible and extraordinary circumstances the day afterwards.

She added that his death had been an "awful tragedy."

“He was extraordinarily unfortunate to live in the same block as Hussain Osman had been, he was desperately unfortunate to look very like Hussain Osman.

“There are some things that happened - for example the fact that the first surveillance officer was indisposed and only able to get a relatively short glance.

“Mr de Menezes waited only a very short time at the bus stop so - as I understand it today, I didn’t know that at the time - therefore a surveillance officer again would not have a great ability to look at him properly.

“Some of the things that Mr de Menezes did in all innocence - the way he behaved, the way he came off the bus and on the bus - contributed to my assessment of him as a bomber from the day before, and someone who might be intent on causing an explosion today.

“And finally the thing I would say last is he had the great misfortune of entering the same Tube station that three of the bombers had entered the day before.

“So lots of things happened, any one of those you might describe as going wrong.”

But the senior officer added: “If you ask me whether I think anybody did anything wrong or unreasonable in the operation, I don’t think they did.”

The inquest also heard she went to the wrong room and missed the start of an important meeting of senior police officers to discuss strategy on the morning of the shooting.

On July 22, 2005, Ms Dick arrived early at New Scotland Yard and went to a room on the 16th floor in time for the 7am conference.

But ten minutes later she received a call to tell her she had been sent to the wrong place and should have been on the 15th floor and had missed part of the meeting.

Ms Dick also told the inquest she was Scotland Yard’s most experienced commander of high risk firearms operations in the years before Mr de Menezes’ shooting.

After five years with Thames Valley Police, she returned to the Met in 2001 and became a commander in the force’s specialist crime directorate with responsibility for organised crime, gun crime and hostage-taking across London.

Between 2003 and 2007 she was involved in overseeing serious firearms operations “literally on a daily basis”.

She said: “I think I probably had the highest volume under my command by far of the most high risk and complex firearms operations.”

Ms Dick was watched in the courtroom at the Oval cricket ground by the shot Brazilian’s mother, Maria Otone de Menezes, who attended the hearing for the first time today.

The hearing continues.