Death on film

04 May 11 | News and features

After an inquest finding that Ian Tomlinson was unlawfully killed, solicitors Sarah McSherry and Louise Christian examine the barriers to justice in cases involving the police

In circumstances where a man’s assault and death were played out on our television sets, the obstacles faced by the Tomlinson family in their battle for justice undermine public confidence in the system intended to hold police officers to account. Had Tomlinson’s assault been carried out by an ordinary member of the public, there is no doubt that the police would have acted within the six-month statutory time limit for common assault and pursued a manslaughter charge in the knowledge that any conflict in the expert evidence obtained by the investigation would be tested in court. A verdict would then have been reached by a jury, which would have considered the credibility of the experts’ explanations, bearing in mind the professional reputations of the experts. This is exactly what happened at the inquest, where the standard of proof for an unlawful killing verdict was the same as in the criminal court.

This case highlights a number of the failures that are unfortunately so common in the context of our work. These include: failures to adequately supervise and manage officers and to conduct adequate, effective and independent complaint investigations that give rise to disciplinary proceedings, as well as failures to bring about prosecutions and/or appropriate penalties and/or to change police policy or practice to prevent a recurrence of the conduct investigated. These failures foster a culture of impunity amongst officers and allow culpable officers to remain in a position to inflict further harm on unsuspecting members of the public. The Crown Prosecution Service will now review its decision with regard to a potential prosecution of the officer involved, PC Harwood; MPs are considering disciplinary proceedings. But what of those who, in breach of their code of professional standards, witnessed but failed to report Harwood’s conduct? Disciplinary action should be instigated against those officers too, given that had the video footage of his last moments not been released, the cause of Tomlinson’s death may have never come to light.

Finally, this case gives rise to serious questions about the use of kettling as a “containment” tactic. Indeed, last month the High Court ruled that the Metropolitan Police broke the law when they kettled protesters at the G20 demonstrations in 2009, during which Ian Tomlinson died. It is clear that the use of kettles enforced by aggressive policing places members of the public at risk of significant harm. We represent Alfie Meadows, who suffered brain injury as the result of a baton strike to the head by a police officer during the 9 December 2010 protest about tuition fees. Luckily for Alfie, he is able to pursue his own quest for justice. Tomlinson was not so fortunate and his family have been forced to take up that struggle on his behalf. Let’s hope their campaign is nearing its rightful conclusion.

Sarah McSherry is equity partner, head of actions against the police, Christian Khan Solicitors and Louise Christian is head of public law, Christian Khan Solicitors

Illegal tactics

03 May 11 | News and features

Last month, the high court ruled that the Metropolitan police broke the law when they kettled protesters at the G20 demonstrations in 2009. Josh Moos, one of the activists involved in the landmark case, considers the lessons to be learnt

As Hannah McClure and I celebrated our legal victory over the Metropolitan police we simultaneously struggled with the media’s emphasis on possible compensation claims. Our goal in bringing the case against the Met was not damages. In fact, the idea that serious infringements of protest rights can be properly compensated for with money is pretty offensive. People protest to draw attention to what must change for the benefit of everyone in society. Making a police force’s insurance company hand over money to protestors whose rights have been compromised changes very little.

Our goal was to bring the police to account. While the police have a long history of violence against protestors such as Blair Peach back in the 1970s, I found it distressing how they were able to detain thousands of climate change protestors and passers-by for five hours and then make orders that force could be used to compress the protest into a much smaller space and ultimately end it. Much of the force used, especially the use of shields as weapons, was filmed and is disturbing to watch even two years on. The court certainly thought so and was highly critical of shield strikes. The fact that senior police officers could make these decisions and hand down such orders without being reprimanded was, to me, obscene. This “over-zealous” approach can be seen in the current Ian Tomlinson inquest.

In response to the question “Does your training tell you if someone is not a threat to you or any other person it is acceptable to baton them? Is that your training?” PC Harwood, the officer who struck Tomlinson before he died, replied “Yes.” This kind of unaccountability had to be challenged. Kettling, a tactic that has become so much part of the everyday protest experience, similarly had to be challenged.

Our case was not simply about the G20 camp. It was about protest in the UK as a whole. The police should not be able to treat climate change protestors, or anyone else, however they wish and get away with it. However, Sir Hugh Orde, head of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), seems to think otherwise. In early 2011, after previously claiming that the Met had learnt its lessons after the G20 Climate Camp protest, Orde stated that the police could use more extreme tactics against protestors. He defended kettling and claimed that horse charges could be “very useful”. This was in response to the wave of protests that gripped the country following the savage cuts by the Con-Dem coalition.

In the course of these protests there were multiple examples of unreasonable uses of police force, accompanied by an apparent belief on the part of the police in their own immunity. In December 2010, Jodi McIntyre, a cerebral palsy sufferer, was dragged from his wheelchair by police officers on two occasions.  An officer justified having done so, claiming that it was “for [Jody’s] own safety”. The previous month had seen tuition fee protestors, as well as children and pregnant women, charged by police on horseback. Despite the Met’s claims to the contrary, a video was posted on Youtube clearly verifying that the crowd had been charged.

After the Kingsnorth Climate Camp in 2009, ministers claimed that 70 police had sustained injuries at the hands of protestors and used this evidence to justify the operation. It later emerged from police records that the injuries comprised sun stroke, bee stings and  hands slammed in car doors. In reality, four police officers were injured through contact with climate change protestors, categorised at the lowest level of seriousness. Subsequently, parts of the police operation at Kingsnorth were found by the courts to have been unlawful.

During protests, police do not and will not act in the interests of the people. They are there to maintain the status quo. To do this, the police will use and manipulate any power they are given to its very limits. The police may claim to have “learnt their lesson”, but such statements are undermined by the fact that they have already decided to appeal this most recent judgment. The police learn their lessons not out of choice, but because they are forced to do so. This is why I was part of the team which took out this case against them.

Josh Moos is an activist and campaigner for Plane Stupid