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My Dear Juby,

I think I perhaps had an unfair advantage on you in having already been told by a lady who was personal assistant to C & W's Chairman that they only calculated their revenue share from these calls at around £5,000 but they reckoned the mobile phone companies had earned 3 to 4 times that amount because many of the calls made were from PAYG mobile numbers.  Also although it has not been publicly admitted I think you will find that it is in fact Cable & Wireless who has agreed to take the revenue hit involved in moving this service on to an 0800 number if and when it may be needed again.  My suspicion is that neither the Police or Pito have not agreed to pay C&W one red cent extra.  But C&W can't hack any further bad publicity on such a sensitive matter.

With regards to the unfortunate Brazilian gentleman I did indeed forecast that it would be found he had not vaulted the ticket barriers.  From the very start this had all the hallmarks of totally trigger happy and out of control coppers and I thought that particularly disgraceful were the statements made by the Commissioner of the Met saying that we must inderstand the difficult position his officers were in and that this sort of thing might happen again. Whereas he should have been saying that this was a dreadful tragedy and that the fact that the gentlemen wielding guns were police officers would not stop them from being brought to account if it was found they had acted outside the law.

It seems that with the new Independent Police Complaints Commission and with the very close family structure surrounding Senor Menezes that the Police will find it very diffiicult to try and pull off the usual total whitewash favoured in such cases.  This case seems to be like the Harry Stanley case only much worse in that at least Mr Stanley was not murdered at point blank range and whilst pinned to the ground by another police officer.

After all our efforts, WHY has this first number STILL (3/11/05)  not been removed from the Met Police website   (http://www.met.police.uk/news/terrorist_attacks/):
"Casualty Bureau - 0870 1566 344 or 020 7158 0010"

With the alternative GN we forced them to issue, and its international equivalent also listed what is the purpose of still listing the 0870?   Everyone knows in a list of two or more numbers at least 90% of people will dial the first number first.

Now in November we have a GLA/Police review of the July bombings incidents, responses and procedures, yet this d**n 0870 number is still being promoted for casualties.  0800 anti-terrorism hotline if you want to cause trouble for your Muslim neighbour, 0870 if your dads possibly been blown up. Will the issue of the sole 0870 number they initially issued for contact get a mention in the review?

The review invites public responses on: 7july@london.gov.uk

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I fear, barclay55, that you have answered your question. Or am I cynical in thinking (like Bl*nk*tt) that this meets the letter if not the spirit of the law?

According to BBC London news tonight the issue of the 0870 has been raised at this GLA/Police London Bombings review, and bless her Emily Maitlis did call it a premium number.

Got the usual mumbling prepared police line, apology, wont happen again, contingencies made now, profits to charity, blah blah.  Strange how the Hazel Drears line re call routeing technology has gone out of the window now.  But the police bloke did say there was an freephone number now which aint on the met. police website, unless he meant the anti-terrorism hotline.

PS Yes Tanllan, guess I have answered my own question

I heard on the radio earlier on that it was announced that an 0870 number was used as it was easier for people abroad to ring in!  What nonsense!  Most people know that the use of an 0870 makes it much harder from abroad!

There was a reference to emergency helpline on the BBC 10 o'clock News this evening. All it said was that callers were charged for calls, nothing on the rip-off nature of these charges.

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BBC Radio 4 news was covering it along the lines that the police were condemned for charging a premium rate for calling the casualty bureau or words to that effect.  It definitely wasn't just portrayed as though the call was being charged at normal national rate when people thought it should be free.

If the Capita/C&W 0870 censor was at work everywhere in the BBC then presumably the You & Yours coverage would never have been possible.