Tomlinson (G20) may not have died from a heart attack........

[FAQinglovely]

here - obviously still provisional and waiting on all the other tests etc to be carried out but still!

I think that manslaughter is fair enough TBH, it's only murder if you intend to kill AFAIK...

Mind you there have been a couple of cases prosecuted as, and found guilty of murder where I have said to DH, surely that's manslaughter? So on that basis, yes, maybe it should be murder...

Sophable, who is your post directed to?

Bigbella - people have been charged with murder when they've just intended to punch someone on a Saturday night and their heads have hit the pavement and that has caused their death.

Don't see the distinction here.

Exactly chequers, I thought that the definition manslaughter meant, that if you hit someone with the intention of hitting them, and they went down and hit their head, and died, then that was manslaughter...

Recent cases have shown that that is in fact murder.

So yes the policeman should be done for murder. As there is a precedent in other high profile cases for what I would have thought was manslaughter being prosecuted as murder.

I've been quite horrified by this too (in the same way laalaa has) and I'm normally quite a supporter of the police.

I guess manslaughter because who knows whether that blow on tape killed him. There may have been others. He may have fallen afterwards and hit something on that area. I suppose the implciation is they didn't intend to kill him but they certainly seemed intent on covering up what did happen.

Trying very hard not to be cynical, I guess maybe they are going for manslaughter now but could upgrade to murder later. Or perhaps the CPS thinks a jury would be reluctant to find a copper guilty of murder.

Or perhaps a little cynicism would be justified...

I think it would be hard to know if his was the only blow though, to be fair.

The reason why it is likely to be a manslaughter charge is probably because the standard of proof for murder is higher. The prosecution would have to show that, at the least, the assailant intended to cause grievous bodily harm.
That's the legal reason - but there are probably more pressing political reasons.

TBH I will be amazed if the police officer involved is ever tried in court let alone found guilty and sent to prison.

I have tried to google this but can't find anything. Does anyone know if it is now illegal to film/photo police due to new anti-terrorism laws?

I think roughly the new law makes it an offence to film a police officer with some loose wording about 'for the purposes of terrorism' or something. Which, of course, means in practice coppers will be free to seize your camera and delete your pictures... just as the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act was sold as applying to terrorism, serious and organised crime but is now used for litter dropping and parents suspected of fibbing about school applications.

I did hear that cameras were seized during the G20 protests but I don't know how true that is.

has anybody seen footage of tomlinson before he was pushed over? im not defending what the police did at all but i have been told that he had apparently been taunting the police on his walk infront of them and refused to move when asked. this is why i wondered if anyone has seen extra footage before the film that has been released which could prove otherwise. or are the news just releasing the pictures they want us to see.
If he had a AAA which burst this would cause his abdominal bleed, he may have medical history with this, if it is the case the court can rule that it could have burst any time an place.
how it was missed on first pm i dont know.

Don't know about footage but there are plenty of witnesses who have spoken about Mr Tomlinson's previous encounters with the police that day. None of them have said Mr Tomlinson was aggressive. He was just trying to get home and the cops kept preventing him.

'Taunting police' and refusing to move sounds like the typical sort of claims that are made to slur the victim in these sort of cases - the police have form on this one.

Remember how poor Jean Charles de Menezes was said to have jumped over the barrier (it was one of the officers, in fact) or ignored shouts of 'police, stop' (none of the witnesses heard any warning at all)?

Akin to police at that power station demo a while back claiming X no. of injuries caused by demonstrators - a Freedom of Information Act request showed actually it was trivial stuff not caused by anyone on the demo, like bee stings and headaches.

Will there now be an investigation of the first pathologist?

I agree with the earlier poster who said it all has echoes of de Mendendez.

you see this is the thing Edam - I'm not saying the protesters are lying, they may very well be telling the gods honest truth. However it's rather "them" and "us" isn't it - the protesters are hardly likely to turn round and admit that anyone was actually doing anything wrong at any point - apart from the police who were "against" them.

I think CCTV footage is probably going to be the only really reliable pieces of evidence to show what actually happened with him before the video that everyone has seen - where I will admit the shoving over seems absolutely atrocious and totally uncalled for - and yes thuggish.

So many of the clips on Youtube of other bits of the protests have been obviously very heavily edited - so unless we were actually there then really we have no idea what happened to cause those reactions from the police.

FAQ - are you really trying to assert that assults by the police as shown here: www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6122785.ece may have been justified?

If you saw me wallop my DD would you assume she may have deserved it? I find it astonishing that anyone can condone such brutality.

Hecate - exactly. There will always be bad apples in any institution. Covering up this apparant murder, to the extent of using a tame pathologist, who had already been involved in two other suspect high profile cases, is much more disturbing.

How high did this go?

The 'only a few bad apples' thing is starting to irritate me.

The saying (and fact) is that it only takes a few bad apples to rot the whole barrel. Trotting it out to dismiss the implications misses the point spectacularly.

You have to deal with it properly and remove the bad apples, you don't just say 'it's only a few'.

And the ridiculous slurs against the people who have been attacked is getting a bit silly now. It's like hearing my kids justify lashing out by telling me the other kid was pulling a really nasty face.

No-one who is defending the police behaviour seems to be able to explain why this excuse magically becomes reasonable if the perpetrator is wearing a police uniform.

This whole thing has shown up a shocking level of naivety about the British police from people who've obviously never bothered to go out and protest for or against something they feel strongly about. There's this pernicious belief that the police must have been seriously provoked, that the great British bobby is a kindly person who takes care of small children and helps old ladies across the street.

That's just one side of the force. There are policepeople who have got away with vicious assaults for years. There are people who have died in cells, there are hundreds of people who've been abused and assaulted on demos and peaceful marches. It's just that we never had the photographic evidence in the past.

When I was in early 20s, I went on a march to protest against cuts in student grants. It was entirely peaceful. So much so that I think the police got bored. So they squashed the entire march onto the pavement. And my boyfriend got jostled and knocked into the road. And he was arrested. I was young and had travelled from Wales to attend and I had lost my other friends (this was in the days before mobiles). I asked the policeman who was taking him off where they were taking him to. He ignored me. I asked him three times, not aggressively, I was pleading and crying. He eventually turned round and SCREAMED in my face 'none of your fucking business you stupid little slut. And if you don't piss off, I'll arrest you too'.

Wake up and smell the coffee. For many members of the force, being a policeman provides them with an opportunity to bully and assault legitimately. It's an uncomfortable truth but it's the truth.

Kay, couldn't agree more.

Really struggling with the provocation argument - surely the police are trained to resist provocation?

I suspect the policeman involved in the Tomlinson case will be prosecuted this time as the Met now desperately needs someone to use as an example - if they are not seen to be taking this seriously the results could be dire for public order.

How on earth are they going to police future demos when public faith in their behaviour is so terribly damaged?

spicemonster - just to add to your anecdote, I feel that I also met this policeman, when I was trying to get help about domestic violence.

Britain will never improve until its organised by the community for the community like france or germany, instead of by the rich for the rich.

Nighnynight - I agree entirely, but is France or Germany really organised by the community for the community? They are organised by the rich for the rich just like every other capitalist country.

Thing is, if there is evidence that he had been pushed/hit/whatever before the filmed assault, how do you prove which assault caused his death?

"This whole thing has shown up a shocking level of naivety about the British police from people who've obviously never bothered to go out and protest for or against something they feel strongly about."

hmm yes of course I've never protested once in my life, neither here nor abroad

and upwind - where did I say that it was "justified"??

FAQ - Apologies for the assumption but I'm amazed that you've been on protest marches in the UK any amount of times and never seen the police behaving in a less than exemplary manner. And even if you haven't witnessed it, I do think it's naive to think it doesn't happen. I'm sorry if you find that insulting.