Surprisingly to me, "not guilty" verdicts have come out in both the case of the men who ran down and killed the Asian youths in the Birmingham riots, as they seemingly had no intention to cause death or injury, and PC Harwood has got off the manslaughter charge presumably on the grounds that the jury felt he did not use unreasonable force.



Interesting. I thought both lots would be potted.

Quite often get strange jury decisions, we just have to accept them as is often said on here.

For the Harwood/Tomlinson case I have never seen the whole of that video, in particular BEFORE the bit where he is pushed to the ground - specifically where did he come from, which direction did he walk from or was he just standing still and the police approached him ?



All of the times I have seen the video he is walking slowly away from the police line with his back turned, hands in pockets, in what COULD be misconstrued to be a defiant manner - if that was the story presented to a jury then I can see where they would come to a not guilty verdict of unreasonable force as they, and we, have all seen the police using much greater force in similar situations have we not ?

Whatever the jury's reasons, we'll probably never know but that's one of the quirks of our legal system, sometimes you don't gey the verdict everyone expects.



What this case does bring to light though is the ineptitude of the Metropolitan Police. Take a look at [url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jul/19/simon-harwood-disciplinary-proceedingsSimon Harwood's police record[/url. He "retired" from the Met shortly before a misconduct hearing, joined Surrey Police and then transferred back to the Met. Why were there no red flags on his records?



The Metropolitan Police should be the subject of a very long and deep review. It should have absolutely no involvement of other police forces and certainly not the idiots at the IPCC.

I thought that guilty verdicts would be brought in for these cases.

My thoughts entirely.



What the hell were they doing allowing this man to 'retire' and then rejoin?



In what other walk of life would this be remotely acceptable?

Pretty much every other walk of life as it happens.



The police (and Fire, and Paramedics etc fwiw) should be held to higher standards.

the tomlinson family are going to pursue civil compensation. sadly as a man with no dependants the claim will be of little value and amount to a bereavment award (£11800) funeral expenses and possibly a small amount of PSLA. certainly less than £20k



I know why Harwood thuggish record wasnt disclosed to the jury but you have to wonder whether the jury would have reached a different verdict had they know what a thug this scumbag was. I suspect the uniform was the reason he was not convicted. Any other thug assaulting and killing an innocent bystander in broad daylight in nay other circumstances would be behind bars now.

Where I work people have retired and then come back as consultants.

Have they done that just before a serious disciplinary hearing?



I just do not see how the jury have come to the conclusion they have. It is undoubted that PC Harwood used unreasonable force. Ian Tomlinson was posing no threat to either people or property. If he was not following police instruction then he should have been arrested, not assaulted.

Was there not some suggestion that the victim had some pre-existing condition, and that the actions of Tomlinson were nothing to do with his collapse?

There was, from a subsequently discredited pathologist.



Oh and Tomlinson was the victim BTW