Carter59

£100 on the spot fines would be a start.

If a TSG riot cop ..... built like a brick @@@@house ..... tells you to *get back* three times, it would be wise to comply, don't you think? Nobody died here. The lady in question is apparently well enough to engage a publicist and sell her story to the press.

To be fair, she was fronting up to the officer and swearing at him. She was also told to *get back* three times before she was struck. A little rough, perhaps, but it looks a fair cop to me ...............

As you so rightly point out, the City is festooned with CCTV cameras, operated by a mix of public and private agencies. Which is why it was absurd of Nick Hardwick, chairman of the IPCC to claim on TV: "We don't have CCTV footage of the incident... there is no CCTV footage, there were no cameras in the location where he was assaulted." It isn`t surprising that the IPCC lacks credibility when they come out with nonsense like that. Fat chance. The inquest will take years.

Piracy has flourished in that part of the world because it has been a low risk/high reward occupation. That needs to change. A few pirate vessels ..... and their crews .... disappearing without a trace would go a long way to solving the problem.

There`s an error of logic there. I said * yes, and I`m the King of Spain* if there was *NO* CCTV coverage, which is what IPCC chief Hardwick claimed on Channel 4 news. Now it transpires that there *IS* footage .... surprise, surprise ..... so alas there is no palace in Madrid for me. It was a ridiculous and unbelievable claim which they withdrew today ...... nearly two weeks after the event ..... after being sent photographs and diagrams pointing out the locations of the cameras in Cornhill and Royal Exchange. The area is well covered by CCTV, and any person with a pair of eyes and average intelligence could have found this out for themselves with a ten minute stroll along the streets in question. And these people are supposed to be professional investigators? Ermmmmm ....................

Blimey, you`re as sad as me. I didn't think another human being actually possessed that album 'Tis very good though ..................

It is what it is ....... independent eyewitness testimony from three members of the public which is entirely consistent with the way Ian Tomlinson was treated in his final encounter with the police near Royal Exchange Buildings. And unlike the police and the IPCC these witnesses have not discredited themselves by misleading the public and the media. Point of order ....... the IPCC is about as *independent* and credible as the Northern Rock bank. It is a widely discredited organization ..... as discredited as the Police Complaints Authority that it replaced ...... and it`s behaviour in this and other cases raises serious doubts about it`s effectiveness and impartiality. For five days after Tomlinson`s death they maintained the line that Ian Tomlinson had simply collapsed and died from a heart attack without any contact with police, despite ample eyewitness testimony that flatly contradicted their version of events. They appointed the City of London police to oversee the investigation despite the involvement of City police officers in events surrounding Tomlinson`s death, a very serious error. We are asked to believe that there are no CCTV recordings of these events, yet when film footage taken by a member of the public emerges which makes their position untenable became public their first instinct seems to be to try and suppress it. Not very impressive so far, is it? It seems to me that the police officer in question has been accorded rather more *rights* than the average man in the street. If I behaved in a similar fashion and a man subsequently died, it is a pretty safe bet I would now be in custody on suspicion of murder. The worst that has happened to this officer so far is a spell of sick leave on full pay. That`s all very well and good ...... but when the IPCC called at the offices of the Guardian they said nothing about the film clip possibly prejudicing future legal proceedings. They based their request on an assertion that the film was *upsetting* to the Tomlinson family, despite the fact that the family had been asking for fresh witnesses to come forward since day one. The newspaper quite rightly refused to take down the film and the IPCC left empty handed. Following your argument to it`s logical end, the continuation of the film clip in the public domain would make any future legal proceedings unfair. Is that what you`re saying? I know a man who was trying to get home from work and had committed no crime was twice assaulted by police officers. I know he subsequently collapsed and died within moments of the second assault. I know the IPCC and the police have been misleading the public and the media. I know somebody has been planting scurillous stories about the dead man in The Sun & The Daily Mail. The wretched Mail even doctored a picture by doing a PhotoShop job on his shirt to make it perfectly clear to everyone that the deceased was a *Millwall Supporter*. That`s enough to be going on with ................

I am suggesting that we are being asked to believe something which is unbelievable, and that embarassing CCTV footage has a habit of being *unavailable* when the Met drops a *******, as at Stockwell. Do you know Cornhill and Royal Exchange? A mouse could not cross the street without being caught on camera. Yet we are told, by the chairman of the IPCC, that there is no footage of the events surrounding Ian Tomlinson`s death. It would strain the credulousness of a 7 year old. No hatred here. But I do object to being lied to and taken for a fool.

And sometimes a cover up is just a cover up. The exact same thing happened in the De Menezes case. Fair comment. For what it`s worth there is a history of heart disease in the Tomlinson family; I believe his brother died of a heart attack at the age of 46. Plainly, Ian Tomlinson was not a well man; it could well be he would have died that day anyway. It remains to be seen wether the rough treatment he received contributed to his death. We must await the results of the second autopsy. The testimony I quoted relates to a seperate, earlier alleged assault. As far as I know it was not filmed, but three witnesses claim to have seen it. Not paranoid, but extremely cynical about the methods and motives of the IPCC. On learning of the film footage taken by the American fund manager and broadcast by the Guardian, the first action of the IPCC was to go to the offices of the newspaper in Faringdon Road, accompanied by a senior City of London police officer, and ask for the film to be taken down from the website. You have to wonder why they would make such a request.

Strange sort of conspiracy theory that is announced on primetime TV news. http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/soci...working/3078297 Click on the *watch the report* link and hear Nick Hardwick, chairman of the IPCC, claim that the CCTV *wasn`t working* that day. No footage available. Not a sausage. Nada. Zilch. Zip. In the financial centre of the most heavily surveilled city on earth, during a summit that the authorities had been planning and preparing for months, all the cameras at Bank, Cornhill and Threadneedle St were apparently broken. Yes. And I`m the King of Spain.

If somebody had made threats of that kind then surely the proper response would be to place them under arrest?

Eyewitness testimony of the earlier assault on Tomlinson: One witness, Anna Branthwaite, a photographer, described how, in the minutes before the video was shot, she saw Tomlinson walking towards Cornhill Street. "A riot police officer had already grabbed him and was pushing him," she said. It wasn't just pushing him – he'd rushed him. He went to the floor and he did actually roll. That was quite noticeable. It was the force of the impact. He bounced on the floor. It was a very forceful knocking down from behind. The officer hit him twice with a baton when he was lying on the floor. So it wasn't just that the officer had pushed him – it became an assault. And then the officer picked him up from the back, continued to walk or charge with him, and threw him. He was running and stumbling. He didn't turn and confront the officer or anything like that." Unfortunately this cannot be confirmed by CCTV footage as the cameras all had mysterious malfunctions that day. You seem to have fallen victim to Met disinformation and hyperbolic tabloid reporting. One empty plastic bottle was thrown at the officers attending the dying man, whereupon the bystanders angrily turned on the bottle chucker and forced them to desist. Any delay imposed on the paramedics was unnecessary. He was, in a slow, shambling sort of way. According to his friends that was normal ...... he walked with an odd shuffling gait. Remember, he was only moments from death when he was thrown to the ground in Cornhill. If he did indeed die of a myocardial infarction, it is quite likely that the heart attack had already begun and the poor fellow was in fact already dying at this point. You could hardly expect a man in his condition to sprint away from the police line like Usain Bolt. I await with interest the results of the second autopsy.

I live in London and work in the City. These events took place about 1/2 a mile from my workplace. I have spoken to three people who attended the demonstrations. My views on this matter are not gleaned from the tabloid press. You said, or implied, that Tomlinson was somehow looking for trouble because he was *hanging around in front of riot police.* The simple point I am making is that Tomlinson was unable to leave the area because he was trapped by the police cordon. Nobody was allowed in, nobody was allowed out, for hours. They call it *kettling.* Twice he tried to cross the police lines to get away from the demonstration, and twice ...... at least ...... he was thrown to the ground and beaten. Ian Tomlinson was a vulnerable member of the public who needed help and protection. Perhaps if those coppers who violently assaulted him had given him an aspirin and a drink of water instead he`d still be alive today.

Ian tomlinson was a recovering alcoholic who lived in a room at St Mungo`s hostel near Smithfield. He`d spent the day working as a newspaper seller and was trying to get back to his room. Despite the slurs disseminated by the Sun and the Daily Mail**, there is no evidence whatsoever that Tomlinson had been drinking that day ...... his workmates are adamant that he was sober. Nor is there any evidence to support your assertion that he was looking for trouble ...... his movements in the critical time frame are entirely consistent with those of a man trying to *avoid* trouble and leave the area. ** Exactly the same kind of slurs that were spread about Jean Charles De Menezes. "He was running away from the police and jumped the ticket barrier." No he wasn`t, and no he didn't. "He ignored a shouted order to stop." There was no shouted warning. "He was wearing a thick and bulky coat despite the warm weather." He was wearing a denim jacket. "He was an illegal immigrant." De Menezes was living and working in the UK legally. I expect plenty more in the same vein about poor Ian Tomlinson. It`s what the Met do when they screw up and someone dies ...... they cover up, lie and smear.