Ian Tomlinson: PC Simon Horwood, Dr Freddy Patel And A Televised Police ‘Cover Up’

IAN Tomlinson died shortly after a policeman called Simon Horwood hit him. Ian Tomlinson was making his way home from work during the G20 protest in London 2009.

He was bitten by a police dog. He was hit by a polcie baton. We saw him hit no-one.

The police investigated the police. The Crown Prosecution Service, what is termed an independent body, found that no copper had any case to answer. That assault you saw on the telly didn’t happen.

There will be no chance for a judge to decide is the police non-assault led to the death of Mr Tomlinson. There is no case to answer. It never happened.

We have not heard from PC Horwood. His everyone of events is unknown to us. But had it gone to court, we would have heard PC Horwood’s side of the story. Has he been deprived of the chance to clear his name of the stench.

But It Was Manslaughter?

* Police complaints investigators recommended that the riot officer filmed pushing Ian Tomlinson to the ground before he died at the G20 protest last year should be charged with manslaughter, according to the dead man’s family.

This revelation has added to controversy over the decision by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) not to bring any charges against the police officer in question, PC Simon Harwood. The recommendation was included in a report by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) for prosecutors last August.

Yesterday, the CPS rejected that opinion and ruled out any criminal charges, including lesser offence of assault or misconduct in a public office.

PC Simon Harwood

That’s him on the video of Mr Tomlinson being struck with a baton and pushed over from behind (see pictures below). PC Harwood’s identity number is covered up and he has a scarf across the lower part of his face. Were it not for his uniform, you might mistake him for a thug seeking anonymity in the mob. But he did NOTHING wrong. Although, while the investigation went on he was suspended from a job looking after the public and keeping law and order.

* A second pathologist, Nat Cary, has challenged the CPS decision to drop criminal charges saying Tomlinson suffered injuries that would support an acutal bodily harm (ABH) charge. Mr Cary said the injuries were “not relatively minor” and that they were “consistent with a baton strike”.

What do we know about PC Harwood:

The married 43 year-old had been due to face a misconduct hearing over the alleged road rage incident, understood to have happened in the late 1990s, but instead retired on medical grounds.

So. He was no longer a copper?

A few years later, the father of two rejoined the Met as a civilian computer worker before applying to Surrey Police for a job as a police constable in May 2003.

A spokesman for Surrey Police said: “He applied to become a Pc with us in 2003. Following our vetting procedure, liaising with the Met Police and passing a medical examination, he was accepted.”

Following this? There’s more:

Pc Harwood spent a year and half working in Surrey before applying to be transferred back to the Met in the autumn of 2004.

By which time that original road rage allegation was no longer an issue?

The Experts

* Dr Nat Cary, who carried out a second examination concluded that Mr Tomlinson fell on his elbow, which “impacted in the area of his liver causing an internal bleed which led to his death a few minutes later”.

Prosecutors admitted there was evidence that Ian Tomlinson had been assaulted by the riot squad officer. But they said he could not be tried for manslaughter or even assault because of the results of the first post-mortem by controversial pathologist Dr Freddy Patel.

* The expert, who has previously been disciplined by the General Medical Council and is now under investigation again, decided Mr Tomlinson died of a heart attack.

However, two further post-mortems by different experts ruled the 47-year-old father-of-nine died because of internal bleeding.

Dr Freddy Patel – aka Dr Mohmed Saeed Sulema Patel

* The expert is now facing fresh claims that he bungled four post-mortems between 2002 and 2004. The GMC is examining 26 charges of sub-standard practice. He is accused of giving questionable verdicts on the causes of deaths, several of which later turned out to be suspicious and has been under investigation since 2005. He was suspended from the register last summer and barred from undertaking post-mortems in suspicious deaths.

Dr Patel Again

* Inquiries into the doctor began after the Camden Ripper Anthony Hardy was caught in 2003. Dr Patel ruled a naked and bruised woman found in Hardy’s flat a year earlier had died from a heart attack. Hardy went on to kill two more women. Dr Patel denies the misconduct charges and insists he was not criticised over the Hardy case.

The Family Reacts

Paul King, Ian Tomlinson’s son, says:

* “Words can’t describe how we feel, we feel very let down, very disappointed… You haven’t heard the last of us yet… It’s outrageous. We feel like it was not a full investigation from the beginning. It’s a big cover-up. They knew that if they dragged this out long enough, they would avoid charges. They knew just what they were doing. They’ve pulled us through a hedge backwards – now we have to go on living our lives.”

Tomlinson’s widow, Julia, told reporters last night:

“The decision not to charge him came as a particular shock because the IPCC [the Independent Police Complaints Commission] told me they had recommended charges of manslaughter when they sent the file up.”

The police do not always keep the peace. Sometimes they get stuck in. Anyone who has ever been to a football match will know how the police can antagonise a volatile situation by looking hard and menacing. They challenge you to have a go.

But if you hit a man, perhaps an off-duty policeman, and he soon after dies… If you assault a man with a baton… If you strike the first blow… If it is all captured on CCTV… If you are not connected… Well, if you do that you are in the police station and then in court on a charge. But if you are in a uniform and the thing is captured on a private camera, the evidence is not to be trusted, the rules are changed and it is deemed that nothing happened.

Although a man is dead. Here’ the visual evidence: