A man died of heart failure at the G20 protests. He was not a protester and the police were quite specific that there had not been in contact with them. Now a video has emerged of Ian Tomlinson being pushed over by a police officer, shortly before he died.
The most worrying aspect of this remains the divergence between the initial statements from the police and what we now know to be reality. In an echo of the spin that surrounded the shooting at Stockwell, we were told that Ian Tomlinson had no contact with the police. The was wrong and misleading to the point of being a deception. As has been observed, central London has no shortage of surveillance, so establishing the circumstances of the incident should have been straightforward. There is no excuse. What would have happened without the chance of a mobile phone video? Would the cover-up have succeeded? If Ian Tomlinson was illegally assaulted then someone should pay, but if the the police lied someone should pay for that as well.
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