Getting away with it

The outcome of the Ian Tomlinson affair should come as a surprise to no-one.

For a cogent explanation of the whole farrago, read CharonQC and Obiter J.

Of course, it’s depressing that, yet again, the police get away with treating innocent members of the public in a way that no civilian could without facing uncompromising criminal sanction.

The really interesting things about this situation are threefold.

First: The Telegraph report that the copper involved, has been subject to disciplinary investigations relating to aggressive behaviour, twice before.

Second: Channel 4 news report that the pathologist who conducted the first post-mortem, on which the CPS place such import,

appeared before the General Medical Council on Monday accused of misconduct over his failings in a total of four autopsies performed between September 2002 and August 2004.

Third: Quite apart from the fact the the IPCC recommended bringing a manslaughter charge against the copper who struck Ian Tomlinson down, there are prior manslaughter cases that have been brought and convicted, on no more causal a link than between PC Dimbleby’s baton and Ian Tomlinson’s ‘heart-attack’, which means that EVEN if the twice-contradicted initial pathology report was relied up on, PC Thuggus could still be charged, and convicted.

In light of this case, I wrote a long piece about my personal take on the relationship between the public, the police and the state. Then my laptop threw a BSOD and flushed an hour’s work down the toilet. Once I’d finished calling Bill Gates a cunt, I updated my autosave settings. For I had resolved that this must never be allowed to happen again.

I shall no doubt return to the subject, but in the meantime, Old Holborn has something.

AJ

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