egafd.com

At last, a little bit of justice for the poor family of Ian Tomlinson, the bloke who was trying to get home at the same time as the G20 demo was going on in London and got assaulted by PC Stephen Harwood.

The original enquiry resulted in the DPP stating that there was not enough evidence to prosecute. This was largely based on a dodgy Home Office pathologist, Dr Patel who believed that Tomlinson died of natural causes.

At the recent inquest the jury found that Tomlinson was unlawfully killed. Patel's medical report was trashed by two other pathologists and a host of medical specialists who felt that the most likely cause of his death was the assault. Harwood's evidence of the events was completely discredited during the inquest.

The next step is for the DPP to review the case in the light of the new medical evidence and verdict of the inquest.

For those of you that did not see the video of the assault

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/0 ... eath-video

I wonder what would have happened if no video existed of the assault? Bugger all would be my guess.

It will be a complete travesty if Harwood is not up on a manslaughter charge within the next six months or so.

Cheers
D

Justice looks like it's being done. It would be scandalous if Stephen Harwood isn't now charged with manslaughter. I can't see how he won't after the verdict.

"It would be scandalous if Stephen Harwood isn't now charged with manslaughter. I can't see how he won't after the verdict."

Agreed. However, the number of policemen charged with killing an individual whilst the policeman was carrying out his/her job iis very, very small.

For example, a total of 333 people have died in or following police custody over the past 11 years, but no officer has ever been successfully prosecuted.

Given the number of people who have died in police custody, demonstrations etc over the years, this is staggering in itself.

Cheers
D

Suggests the power of justice is modest compared to that of the Masonic Lodge...

Lets just hope, then, that this case is different. Maybe the media coverage and publicity surrounding this case might actually be to the officer's benefit. Can any jury be considered 100% impartial after reading newspaper articles and youtube clips over the last 2 years?

Yes the police over reacted towards Ian Tomlinson, but he was not totally without blame. He was being a pest, yes he was walking away, yes his hands were in his pockets, but ... he was walking deliberately slowly, goading the police verbally, stopping them forming their line as quickly as they wanted/needed to, so an officer, who was probably fedup to the back teeth with this kind of behavior over reacted.

Should the officer be punished? yes, is Ian Tomlinson completely innocent? No. Did he deserve to die, of course not.

I think the 2 areas that really need looking at are first the polices lack of reaction when Ian Tomlinson does not get up quickly, one of them should have checked him out, and secondly the attempted cover up is unacceptable in this day and age.

"and secondly the attempted cover up is unacceptable in this day and age."

That's the whole problem as far as I'm concerned, and let's face it, it would have started with the officer that pushed him, but it must have continued from higher up.

Lizard wrote:

> That's the whole problem as far as I'm concerned, and let's
> face it, it would have started with the officer that pushed
> him, but it must have continued from higher up.
>
>

Well we know what the official version of events was before the phonecam/tourist evidence was made available, so yes, the cover-up went pretty high.

I still doubt this copper will get anything more that "retire on health grounds" as a punishment.

I am with Zorro on every aspect and anyone who thinks he wasn't deliberately trying to cause an issue knows absolutely nothing about how to cause that kind of bother.

Happens every week at football grounds by 'fans' intent on causing trouble. Happens every week in towns across the country by drunks intent on causing trouble.
Happens every time there is some sort of protest by people whose sole intention is to cause trouble.

For me Tomlinson knew exactly what he was doing and got what he himself probably expected. The problem was the sheer force of the push which he couldn't take which resulted in a price to high.

The pathologist needs to go inside, not just the policeman and anyone else linked with 'trying to get away with it' but this poor little innocent being portrayed just doesn't wash with me.