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The verdict has finally been reached and means that there's interesting times ahead - unlawful killing :-

Ian Tomlinson verdict could lead to manslaughter charge for officer | UK news | The Guardian

Given the video footage that was fairly freely available I do not see how they could have brought any other verdict but it remains to be seen whether the DPP will act as a result.

The DPP will wriggle to the maximum extent to avoid taking any effective action. As will any disciplinary process.

He also appeared to confuse the duty for police officers to justify their use of force, seemingly telling jurors that he – the officer – was arbiter of appropriate force.

"It is up to the police officer to justify the use of force and it is for me to say, or for the officer to say, whether the force was reasonable or not," he said. "If I say it is reasonable, it is reasonable. I have been a police officer for 14 years and that is my understanding."


I've met one or two like that as well as the odd one that thinks they can make up the law as they go. The problem is you sometimes get a culture developing where behaviour like that is tolerated.

gmc;1358763 wrote: I've met one or two like that as well as the odd one that thinks they can make up the law as they go. The problem is you sometimes get a culture developing where behaviour like that is tolerated.


His way lies oppression - the arbiter of reasonableness has got to be divorced from the person making the initial judgement in order to provide a control mechanism.

That eliminates the police themselves, the appeals process, the DPP's office, the government and the courts at a stroke. Every one of those bends over backwards in favour of suppressing and ignoring the criticism, delaying and preventing adjudication, much less pro-actively rooting out thuggish officers. The simple reason is that thuggishness and an eagerness to pull triggers on command is a job requirement for the bleeding police, innit. Who else is going to impose unrestrained savagery on those attempting mass civil disobedience?

The point of having a legal system with jury trials and a system of checks and balances is to prevent abuses by those in power, not protect the criminal as the daily mail would have us believe. It's not a perfect system and never will be all you can do is go for a lot lesds imoperfection. You can't have ity both ways, complain about police inaction against teenege gangs terrorising the neighbours and condemn them all because a few get out of hand.

Our police were unarmed right from the outset so they they would not be perceived as yet another means of represssing the people. Now we have politivians wanting to bruing them all under a central authority to save costs and have better control.

spot;1358709 wrote: The DPP will wriggle to the maximum extent to avoid taking any effective action. As will any disciplinary process.


They are now saying that a manslaughter charge has a reasonable chance of success and a prosecution will be brought :-

G20 officer to face manslaughter charges over Tomlinson's death - Crime, UK - The Independent