So, that's it then. The family of Jean Charles de Menezes waited three years for an inquest to explain why he was shot to death on a tube train and then, at the crucial moment, the whole thing was rendered meaningless. By instructing the jury that they should not even contemplate a verdict of unlawful killing or make any additional observations, Mr Justice Wright robbed that family of any hope they may have had that those involved in the debacle would be held to account. In that context, this open verdict was the only rational option left for the jury. Still, tragedy slides into farce.

Let's look at what the judge decided. He said no reasonable person having heard the evidence could conclude that what occurred was murder. That's surely right. Whatever happened underground at Stockwell, there was no malice aforethought. It was a horrible and scary time. Those of us who live in the capital well remember it. People had died on 7/7 and had been maimed in the most horrible circumstances and the talk was of an immediate repetition, of young men queuing up to martyr themselves. The context is important.

But the judge's instruction to the jury meant they were also prevented from viewing what happened as manslaughter. Can that be right? Was there no possibility, on the basis of what was heard that the death might have been the result of recklessness or criminal negligence, which would have amounted to gross negligence manslaughter and might have led to a verdict of unlawful killing. Shouldn't the jury have been left to decide that?

Because, even when viewed in context, the way the police and the security services went about their business that day seemed shambolic. The nerve centre had all the organisation and purpose of Trafalgar Square on New Year's Eve and as for the effort to identify and to follow the suspect, that would have been better carried out by reporters from the News of the World. And so we are left with a conclusion that does everything but give us closure.

But then that was always likely. Inquests have clearly defined objectives. They are convened to discover cause of death. The surrounding events are incidental. Anyone who has sat through an inquest has heard the coroner say that they are not there to apportion blame. They are emotional affairs but they are administrative and limited. I have yet to see a grieving family emerge from an inquest satisfied that the death of their loved one had been explored in the round.

This was no forum for the forensic examination of these events, touching as they do on politics, policing, international affairs, intelligence. In this limited forum, mistakes and lies can be covered up and lessons go unlearned because those under scrutiny well know that their best chance of reducing pressure on themselves is to take advantage of the fact that the scope of these hearings is limited. The laws governing inquests allow them to do that.

Jean Charles de Menezes was a victim of terrorism. He was killed by brave officers responding to a terrible threat, but he was blameless. It was his terrible luck to end up in that underground carriage with them. It was their terrible luck to end up in that carriage with him.

What still needs explaining is how that happened. Why an operation that should have been months in the planning, given all the warnings police had given to the public in preceding months, ended so tragically. Relatives of the dead man and their supporters have long called for a public inquiry. For all our sakes, they should have it.