Ian Tomlinson: police escape prosecution

We're told today that the police officer who made an unprovoked attack on Ian Tomlinson from behind will not face prosecution. This is, we are told, because of the conflict between the two postmortems.

The first autopsy exonerated the police and claimed he had not been attacked and died of a heart attack, the second was conducted after witness statements and video footage came out showing that he had been attacked and said he had died of internal bleeding.

The police lied and lied again to cover up the actions of their officers - and on this occasion were caught out time and time again. How many other autopsies are as keen to deliver a result that the police want over the facts I wonder. Why does the law not see the first autopsy as a scandal?

What I don't understand is this, does the CPS's reasoning make sense even in their own terms? If the postmortems make it difficult to prove a murder charge (and I think we'd all prefer a jury to make that decision not an arm of law enforcement) why does that mean that a lesser charge could not be considered?

We know Tomlinson was the victim of an unprovoked attacked, it's on film from several different angles for a start. We know that Tomlinson was the victim of an attack from behind while he had his head down and his hands in his pockets. He could have done nothing more to pose less of a threat.

Why were lesser charges not being considered?

It turns out it's because the CPS took so long to make up it's mind. They could have brought a charge of common assault within a few weeks of the incident (when the officer finally came forward) but they chose to string it out and once six months had passed no lesser charge could be brought.

At the end of the day if it had been Ian Tomlinson who had attacked a police officer from behind who then died later that day there would have been no question of him escaping prosecution. He'd have been behind bars long ago. What a disgraceful double standard, utterly corrupt.