Family and friends of the Brazilian man shot by police on the London Underground yesterday demanded the resignation of Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, if it turned out that he misled the public about the circumstances of the tragedy.

They said that he was "ultimately responsible" for the officers who gunned down Jean Charles de Menezes, a 27-year-old electrician, thinking he was a suicide bomber, and for the "catalogue of disasters" that led to his death.