Stench of Cover-up over G20 death

If you aren't familiar with the story surrounding the death of Ian Tomlinson, it's summed up here and here.

Turns out, the pathologist who reported he had died of a heart attack has a history of covering up suspicious deaths. Or, if we're being nice, getting things wrong.

Guardian: Pathologist in Ian Tomlinson G20 death case was reprimanded over conduct

Home Office pathologist Dr Freddy Patel concluded Tomlinson had died of a heart attack. He has previously been reprimanded by the GMC, after he released medical details about a man who died controversially in police custody.

In a second case, which raised questions about Dr Patel's findings, police dropped a criminal investigation after the pathologist gave it as his opinion that the victim, a woman, had died of natural causes. A man who lived in the flat where the body was found went on to murder two other women and mutilate their bodies.

Another detail about the officer responsible for the (IMO) manslaughter of Tomlinson is that he had removed his epaulettes with the ID number on. This might indicate the incident was planned; another possibility is that they were removed with the general intent to avoid accountability for anything that may happen. Still another possibility is that the epaulettes were torn off either during the police operation by protestors (unlikely) or beforehand by officers to prevent that from happening. The latter seems unlikely because it's part of the riot police uniform, it would be designed with that in mind. Speculation, unfortunately, is as good as it gets on this one, but it would be no surprise if the officers had removed their IDs beforehand to avoid accountablilty for anything that may happen.

What will become of this incident? Well, they may have made a poor choice for pathologist, but it's likely the death by heart attack will be found by whoever is doing the second autopsy. That's not to suggest Tomlinson didn't die of a heart attack, he probably did; but even if he didn't, that's what I would expect would be the finding.

The officer will be shielded by the IPCC and his buddies, the incident will go down in the MSM (if it gets mentioned at all) as an unfortunate accident that can be blamed on the protestors. After all, if they hadn't been there excercising free speech, police wouldn't have been forced to assault anyone, right? (How's that for apologist logic?)