Ian Tomlinson death: Thoroughly disappointing

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) yesterday published three reports. One was into the death of Ian Tomlinson, in April 2009, a second looked at the police media handling of the case, while the third was a particularly critical one on the police evidence to pathologists. The reports are detailed. The main one is a thorough piece of work, running to 98 pages. But it is not thorough enough.

Here's why. The Guardian reported yesterday that, two days after Mr Tomlinson's death, three Metropolitan police officers reported to their superiors that they had seen a colleague push Mr Tomlinson to the ground. The Met police passed the officers' information to the City of London force, which polices the Square Mile where Mr Tomlinson died and which was responsible for the initial 2009 investigation.

Yet the City police do not appear to have told the IPCC, or the pathologist who was due to examine Mr Tomlinson, or the coroner or, not least, Mr Tomlinson's family any of this. All this happened four days before the Guardian released video footage of the officer striking Mr Tomlinson. It was only then that the Tomlinson investigation went up a gear, setting in train a sequence of events that produced last week's unlawful killing inquest verdict, a new referral to the director of public prosecutions and, yesterday, the release of the IPCC report.

It is, of course, possible that justice will eventually be done to Mr Tomlinson in spite of the initial failures of response. Yet the failure to act promptly on the three officers' evidence prompts serious questions for the City force and the IPCC. The death of any citizen during a police public order operation is a matter of the highest seriousness. Yet the response was slow and not proportionate to the potential and, as it later turned out, the actual importance of the case. Why did the City force not raise its game as soon as the three Met officers' reports were known? Why did the IPCC not start its investigation immediately as it learned of Mr Tomlinson's death on 1 April, or on 3 April when it learned that members of the public saw the pushing incident, or on 5 April when the Observer published the first photographs of the police assault? Why, if the IPCC now knew about the three police witnesses when it finally took over the investigation on 8 April, has it released a report more than two years later which fails to acknowledge their evidence at all?

The IPCC's job is to provide a professional, independent and accountable check on police actions. It does its best with limited resources. But it did not respond effectively enough when the Tomlinson case occurred. Now, two years on, it still seems unable to see the wood for the trees or to get to the heart of this crucial case.

Tuesday 10 May 2011