Jean Charles de Menezes AP

CAMPAIGNERS for Jean Charles de Menezes have branded the police watchdog as "woeful" for clearing an officer of wrongdoing even though he admitted tampering with evidence.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission issued no punishment for the Special Branch officer who deleted text from a note describing what happened in the operations room at Scotland Yard on the day the Brazilian was shot dead.

The IPCC said the officer, known only as "Owen", had acted naively but found no evidence of "deliberate deception".

But the Justice4Jean campaign accused the watchdog of failing to hold officers to account.

Spokeswoman Yasmin Khan said: "It doesn't matter if you are a policeman fiddling notes after a shooting or a politician fiddling expenses on the sly, no one should be above the law.

"This latest decision is one of a long line of IPCC decisions which have let every police officer involved in the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes off scot-free.

"This weak and woefully poor excuse of a watchdog must now be overhauled and replaced with a robust body that can actually hold police officers to account."

The note referred to a comment from Deputy Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick, who was in charge of the police operation on the day of the shooting.

It quoted her as saying de Menezes could "run on to Tube as not carrying anything", .

Dick previously claimed she believed de Menezes posed a "great threat" as officers pursued him.

But the officer who wrote the note did not hand it over to the IPCC when it began investigating the death of de Menezes in 2005, nor was it mentioned during the 2007 health and safety trial.

On 7 October last year, a week before he gave evidence to the inquest, he removed the line of text before handing the note to Metropolitan Police lawyers.

He admitted changing the evidence when he spoke to the inquest, but said he did so because it was "misleading" and not relevant.

The police watchdog found Owen "acted alone" in failing to disclose the note and then deleting it, and had not been influenced by senior officers.

Its report concluded the officer had shown a "lack of understanding" of how he should behave, but had not committed an offence and should simply be given additional training.

"There was no evidence of deliberate deception in this instance by the Metropolitan Police Service as a whole or any individual within it," it said.

At the time of the inquest, the revelation prompted accusations of a "sickening cover-up" by family members of the Brazilian, who was shot dead at Stockwell Underground station on 22 July 2005 by officers who mistook him for bombing suspect Hussain Osman.

Today's report found the officer's role on the day was "peripheral" and he had a "limited" understanding of what was being discussed by those around him.

IPCC deputy chairman Deborah Glass said he had been "consistent" in his explanation both to the inquest and to the IPCC over why he deleted the note.

She said: "Owen himself brought the existence of his note to public attention; there was little chance of his computer note, which had been on the system since 2005, coming to light otherwise.

"He has been consistent in his explanation, both to the inquest and to this investigation, that he deleted the reference to the 'management discussion' because it was inaccurate and misleading.

"Owen should have revealed the existence of the note when requested by the IPCC investigation in 2005, and subsequently disclosed it at the Health and Safety trial in 2007.

"That he did not do so showed a lack of understanding of what was required of him, but was not an offence.

"Although this lack of understanding needs to be addressed by additional training, it does in this instance provide an explanation for what occurred."