Ian Tomlinson inquest to get underway this week

The inquest into the death of Ian Tomlinson, who died during the G20 protests in 2009, will commence on Monday 28 March 2011 and is expected to last for of 5-6 weeks. It is expected to sit from Monday to Thursday from 10.00am – 4.00pm. The family welcomes supporters to attend.

An inquest is a legal investigation that is open to the public. Its purpose is to establish who the person was and where, when and how they died.

The inquest will be conducted by the Chief Coroner, Judge Peter Thornton QC, who replaces the City of London Coroner Paul Matthews. Hearings will take place at the International Dispute Resolution Centre at 70 Fleet Street, London, EC4Y 1EU.



First day

If you are attending on the first day it is recommended that you arrive at 9.00am.

Seating

At the time of posting this article, we still await the City of London Corporation to set up a dedicated website giving full details about the inquest including information for the public around entry. We will provide a link to this when it becomes available. In the meantime, we are providing some general information about what to expect and will amend this as further details become available:

Seats for the court are likely to be allocated on a first come, first served basis.

There will also be a separate ‘link room’, in addition to the court room, with a live audio-visual link.

It is anticipated that one-day seating passes for the court will be issued. To avoid disappointment it is advisable to arrive at 9:00am to queue for these. It is also likely that there will be some delays as a result of a security and bag check. Given the size of courtrooms and the need to accommodate interested persons, the jury and media representatives, seating spaces in the public gallery will be limited.

Those attending the inquest should anticipate that both the courtroom and the link-room are likely to be subject to the same restrictions as would apply to other courts. It is anticipated that when the court is sitting the use of mobile telephones, blackberries, recording equipment, cameras, personal stereos and eating and drinking will be prohibited.

Further information on the inquest is available on the
City of London Corporation's website.
this article came from the Posted by Justice for Ian website setup in memory of him and to search for justice for a poor innocent guy killed as a result of heavy handed police tactics on the G8 demonstration.

Ian Tomlinson (7 February 1962 – 1 April 2009) was an English newspaper vendor who collapsed and died in the City of London on his way home from work during the 2009 G-20 summit protests. A first postmortem examination indicated that he had suffered a heart attack brought on by coronary artery disease, and had died of natural causes.[2]

His death became controversial a week later when The Guardian obtained footage of his last moments, filmed by an American investment fund manager who was visiting London. The video showed Tomlinson being struck on the leg from behind by a police officer wielding an extendable baton, then pushed to the ground by the same officer. It appeared to show no provocation on Tomlinson's part—he was not a protester, and at the time he was struck, the footage showed him walking along with his hands in his pockets. He walked away after the incident, but collapsed and died moments later.[3]

After The Guardian published the video, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) began a criminal inquiry. A second postmortem indicated that Tomlinson had died from internal bleeding caused by a blunt force trauma to the abdomen, in association with cirrhosis of the liver. A third postmortem was arranged by the defence team of the accused officer, PC Simon Harwood; the third pathologist agreed that the cause of death was internal bleeding. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced in July 2010 that no charges would be brought, because medical disagreement about the cause of the death meant prosecutors could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there was a causal link between the death and the alleged assault.[4] The first pathologist, Dr Freddy Patel, was suspended for three months in August 2010 for "deficient professional performance" in several unrelated cases.[5]

Tomlinson's death sparked an intense debate in the UK about what appeared to be a deteriorating relationship between the police and the public, the degree to which the IPCC is independent of the police, and the role of citizens in monitoring police and government activity—so-called sousveillance. There was criticism of the news coverage too, the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, calling it "an orgy of cop bashing." The incident was compared to previous deaths involving either police contact or allegedly inadequate investigations, such as the deaths of Blair Peach (1979), Stephen Lawrence (1993), and Jean Charles de Menezes (2005), each of which acted as a watershed in the public's perception of policing in the country.[6] In response to public concerns, the Chief Inspector of Constabulary, Denis O'Connor, published a 150-page report in November 2009 that aimed to restore Britain's traditional consent-based model of policing. The Guardian hailed the report as a blueprint for wholesale reform.


This case is very crucial i feel as just this weekend we have heard of more heavy handed police tactics on anti cuts demonstrators who stayed later on fora party in Trafalgur square who were kettled another contravertial police tactic and many were injured and arrested for seemingly protesting innocently.

So this case here will be very interesting to see how the police come out of it all and if any officers will be charged or anything at all. Ian deserves justice for his family and memory if nothing else.