Tomlinson family braced for final decision

by Ian Dunt

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) will today announce if the officer who pushed Ian Tomlinson before his death will face criminal charges.

Earlier this month a jury found that the newspaper seller was "unlawfully killed" by police during the G20 protests in 2009.

The inquest into the death concluded that the newspaper vendor posed "no threat" and was walking away from police when he was killed.

That decision put enormous pressure on director of public prosecutions Kier Starmer, who was called on to reverse an earlier decision not to charge the officer who pushed and hit Mr Tomlinson with manslaughter.

That officer was PC Simon Harwood, a member of the Metropolitan police's Territorial Support Group, which has itself come under scrutiny for its heavy-handed tactics during various protests.

Original reports suggested that he had a heart attack but video evidence emerged later showing that he had been walking away from the police when he was hit by a baton and pushed to the floor.

The jury found that "abdominal haemorrhage due to blunt force trauma to the abdomen in association with cirrhosis of the liver" was the cause of death.

The death "was the result of a baton strike from behind and a push by the officer which caused Ian Tomlinson to fall heavily".

Both the baton strike and the push were "unreasonable", the jury concluded.