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G20 death: Met police officer may face manslaughter charge

by Barbara McPherson | April 17, 2009 at 04:51 pm

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New information about the death of Ian Tomlinson, the man who was assaulted by police during the G20 conference has come to light. A second autopsy, ordered by his family, has revealed evidence of internal bleeding.

The police officer caught on film attacking Ian Tomlinson during the G20 protests could face manslaughter charges after a second postmortem concluded that the newspaper vendor died from internal bleeding and not a heart attack.

The dramatic new evidence, made public yesterday, provoked an immediate response from the victim's family, who said that they had been "badly misled" by police.

Yesterday's developments came 10 days after the Guardian first revealed footage of Tomlinson being struck and pushed to the ground minutes before he collapsed and died in the City of London.

Tomlinson's son Paul King said: "We believe we were badly misled by police about the possible role they played in Ian's death. First we were told that there had been no contact with the police, then we were told that he died of a heart attack. Now we know that he was violently assaulted by a police officer and died from internal bleeding. As time goes on we hope that the full truth about how Ian died will be made known."

The dramatic video of Mr. Tomlinson being struck from behind was released by the Guardian and let to questions being asked about the authorities conduct.

1 See all footage | View Slideshow

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jazzyzazzy

at 17:31 on April 17th, 2009

So sad the man died in such a dreadful way.Tho to be honest with you I have seen many young and arrogant police officers get away with this sort of brutal behaviour time and time again. I understand the pressure the police are often under when in a crowd situation, mistakes can be made at such dire cost. The police are as velnerable as we are in crowd control instances. Why ? is the million dollar question.

Jimmy Gilliam (not verified)

at 20:48 on April 17th, 2009

I have often heard how police are stressed in their jobs and how difficult their jobs are. I guess that is supposed to justify lying about killing someone. Thankfully justice may be partially served by someone's film but only partially, because whatever form justice takes, it cannot replace the loss.

Babel-Fish

at 23:23 on April 17th, 2009

Have you ever wondered why police have big shields. Well demonstrations are mostly violent affairs where the crowds throw stones and intentional want to hurt the police of whom bar the way.

Of course the police have batons and when things get really violent they use the batons.

But of course the reason for the violence is that there are people within the crowd that specifically get involved as they want to damage and run lawlessly amok and injure policemen.

One has to ask what was Ian Tominson doing and what was his motives at the time of this unfortunate incident. Was he in that crowd to incite violence?

Why did the police officer strike Ian was it because he was being violent?

Barbara McPherson

at 08:14 on April 18th, 2009

The information that I have, and seems to be accurate, is that Mr. Tomlinson was going home after work. When he was struck from behind by the officer with the masked face, he had both hands in his pockets and was walking away from the police. Of course the police have difficult, stressful jobs, but when they break the law they must be held accountable or it erodes the trust that the law abiding citizens have in the constabulary.

Babel-Fish

at 17:53 on April 18th, 2009

Yep I have seen the actual BBC News report and it shows the policeman to be in violation, I back every thing you say Babara to the hilt.

When you see the unruliness of the crowds that day and the smaller force of peace keeping police it shows the stress that the police are under. I have felt such stress at the time of the troubles in northern Island back in the 1970's when I myself had to hold a shield and a baton while paving stones and petrol bombs where thrown at my buddies and me. It was hard to refrain from hurting any of the rioters. I have had to fire rubber bullets at rioters and we tried to ensure they bounced of of the road before hitting a petrol bomb or stone thrower. That was to stop the rubber bullet from causing a fatal injury.

Its very easy to blame the police (or army) and forget what many of the rioter are trying to do. Its very hard to draw a line especially when within such demonstration crowds there are those hooligans that are there for specific reasons to incite the crowd and injure and destroy and vandalize property.