Tomlinson inquest: final evidence

Full coverage from the final day of evidence at the inquest into the death of Ian Tomlinson at the 2009 G20 protests in London 10.29am: The professor has explained “ventricular fibrillation”, where the heart wobbles. This is what leads to the arrhythmic heart attack that Dr Patel said he believed was the cause of Tomlinson’s death. Channer said it is possible to have so-called “pulseless electrical activity” – the reading present in Tomlinson’s ECG readings – after ventricular fibrillation of the heart. But he said there is a major caveat: The electrical activity that you see there [after ventricular fibrillation], although regular, is very different from the regular activity we saw in this case. 10.21am: Channer is the expert who produced the report on the electro cardio gram (ECG) readings taken from a defibrillator that was attached to Tomlinson by paramedics. The conclusions of his report have already been explained, to some degree, to the jury . 10.15am: Professor Channer, a consultant cardiologist, has taken the stand. He is being questioned by Alison Hewitt , the counsel for the inquest. 10.06am: The jury is coming in – we are about to begin. 9.52am: The inquest into Ian Tomlinson’s death is nearly over. This will be the last day of evidence. Next week, the judge will sum up the case and, the week after, the jury will retire to consider its verdict. I’ve posted a full schedule here . The inquest has been broadly split into two sections. The first part examined Tomlinson’s last minutes alive at the G20 protests in London, and it is likely that the jury will have to decide whether PC Simon Harwood acted lawfully when he shoved the newspaper seller to the ground on 1 April 2009. Harwood offered a defence of his actions over three days of evidence – you can catch up on it here , here and here . This video footage, first obtained by the Guardian, has proved crucial in enabling the jury to decide whether the action Harwood took against Tomlinson was proportionate and reasonable. The second and most recent part has considered the medical cause of Tomlinson’s death. The first pathologist to conduct a postmortem, Dr Freddy Patel , has maintained that the 47-year-old died of an arrhythmic heart attack. The jury has been told that Patel has twice been suspended by the General Medical Council for botched post mortems and dishonesty. All the medical experts who have given evidence have to some degree contested Dr Patel’s findings, including the cardiac pathologist Dr Mary Sheppard , the consultant surgeon Professor Robin Williams , the liver specialist Dr Graeme Alexander and the heart specialist Professor Kevin Channer , who we may hear more from today. The second pathologist to examine the body, Dr Nat Cary , is convinced Tomlinson died of internal bleeding into the abdomen. So too is Dr Kenneth Shorrock , the third pathologist who, as we heard on Friday , was instructed by the Met but concluded that Tomlinson died of injuries “consistent” with an attack by one of its officers. Today, the jury will be told of the findings of Dr Ben Swift , the pathologist instructed by PC Harwood. He, too, found that Tomlinson died of internal bleeding. Ian Tomlinson Police G20 Paul Lewis guardian.co.uk

Posted by on April 21, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.