Outrage at decision not to charge Tomlinson officer

The Crown Prosecution Service's decision to bring no criminal charges against the riot police officer who pushed London newsvendor Ian Tomlinson to the ground shortly before he died during last year's G20 protests has been greeted with outrage and accusations of a cover-up by his family.

To compound their fury, it has emerged that police complaints investigators recommended last August that the officer concerned, Pc Simon Harwood, should be prosecuted for manslaughter, and told Tomlinson's family what their advice had been.

Tomlinson's widow, Julia, told reporters last night: "The decision not to charge him came as a particular shock because the IPCC [the Independent Police Complaints Commission] told me they had recommended charges of manslaughter when they sent the file up."

The newsvendor's stepson Paul King said: "It's outrageous. We feel like it was not a full investigation from the beginning. It's a big cover-up."

Announcing his decision not to prosecute Harwood, Director of Public Prosecutions Keith Starmer did not dispute that Pc Harwood struck 47-year-old Tomlinson with his baton and pushed him to the ground minutes before he died from a sudden heart attack.

He also acknowledged that Tomlinson, who had happened to be walking home through the throng of G20 protestors in the City of London, posed no threat to police officers. There was, he said, "sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of proving that the actions of the police officer... constituted an assault".

However, he said there was no realistic prospect of a conviction against Harwood because of "sharp disagreements" between pathologists. He also said it was too late under the legal time limit for the CPS to bring a charge of common assault.

Paul King said: "He [Starmer] has just admitted on TV that a copper assaulted our dad. But he hasn't done anything. He's the man in charge - why hasn't he charged him?"

The Tomlinsons' solicitor, Jules Carey, said Starmer's decision was disgraceful and called for an inquiry to examine whether the refusal to prosecute was due to a "lack of will or incompetence".

Another matter enraging the family is why the City of London Coroner, Paul Matthews, called pathologist Freddy Patel to conduct the initial post-mortem examination on Tomlinson.

Patel's post-mortem endorsed the police's version of events, ruling that Tomlinson had died from a heart attack. As a result, the CPS dismissed Tomlinson's injuries as "relatively minor" and not enough to support a charge of Actual Bodily Harm (ABH) against Pc Harwood.

But Patel's work was already the subject of police concern when he was called to conduct the post-mortem. By coincidence, Patel yesterday faced a disciplinary hearing at the General Medical Council for allegedly conducting four other autopsies incompetently. The Home Office has suspended him from its list of approved pathologists.

In the meantime, the Tomlinson affair is far from over. An inquest can now be held into his death. Pc Harwood, who has been suspended from duty ever since he was identified as the officer who struck Tomlinson, still faces a disciplinary hearing. And calls for a judicial review into how the IPCC can say one thing and the CPS another are bound to increase.

Deborah Coles, co-director of Inquest, a charity that advises bereaved families on contentious deaths, told the Guardian: "The eyes of the world will be looking on with incredulity as yet again a police officer is not facing any criminal charges after what is one of the most clear-cut and graphic examples of police violence that has led to death. This decision is a shameful indictment of the way police criminality is investigated." ·