So the Met police get away with muder once again!

[Roehre]

.....This country has got all of its priorities wrong, mainly because those who have the benefit of being reasonably strong can't recognise their own good fortune, and have significant strands of deep unpleasantness in themselves. That should concern us all.

This country lacks common sense at all levels, be it government (better said: the main parties), the courts, the councils, the press (including both broadsheets and tabloids, but THEY rule this country), and many single minded, badly informed people.
I am very sorry, but this country is in a dire state.

[Ariosto]

So the Met Police get away with murder AGAIN!!!!

we have a difficult public order problem with a relatively small number of career protesters who use the language of this thread title to provoke and promote thuggery during public protest ... they are as damaging as any police force to our freedoms of expression and protest ... these career thugs are used by the police as the justification for the repression of the mass of ordinary non violent protesters ...by kettling and shoving and thwacking with telescopic truncheons etc ... [the logic is exactly parallel to the terrorist case]

For someone who up until now I considered a reasonable thinking person and whose views I had respected, this is rather a silly statement. I also seem to remember someone (not sure who) saying that this thread would not last long and get many responses. So my opinion of you has unfortunately altered for the worse, but I don't expect that will concern you.

I could of course have asked simply for people's opinions on the outcome of the trial, but I thought I would use the sort of language that I felt more appropriate to an obvious mis-carriage of justice, in my view. One law for the police and another for the rest of us.

[scottycelt]

there are no circumstances in which Mr Tomlinson should have been pushed in such a manner, no matter what the consequent outcomes and no matter the quality of his life and character ... .

My view entirely ... one's personal life and character have nothing to do with being the victim of a cowardly assault by a police officer or anyone else..

It was cowardly because Mr Tomlinson was clearly incapable of defending himself and the officer attacked him from behind as he was walking (staggering) away.

Some might blame Mr Tomlinson' s alcoholism for him being in that situation in the first place but that in no way excuses the policeman's unprovoked violence which, apart from anything else, played right into the hands of the vociferous anti-police brigade which appears to yearn for anarchic mob rule over the rest of us.

[Ariosto]

My view entirely ... one's personal life and character have nothing to do with being the victim of a cowardly assault by a police officer or anyone else..

It was cowardly because Mr Tomlinson was clearly incapable of defending himself and the officer attacked him from behind as he was walking (staggering) away.

Some might blame Mr Tomlinson' s alcoholism for him being in that situation in the first place but that in no way excuses the policeman's unprovoked violence which, apart from anything else, played right into the hands of the vociferous anti-police brigade which appears to yearn for anarchic mob rule over the rest of us.

Quite right Scotty. But your last sentence regarding an anti-police brigade is maybe just a touch over the top? If you are hinting that I'm anti-police then you should come out and say it - and then I can put the record straight in saying that I am not anti-police. But I am extremely critical of them, in certain conditions and under certain circumstances.

[Lateralthinking1]

For someone who up until now I considered a reasonable thinking person and whose views I had respected, this is rather a silly statement. I also seem to remember someone (not sure who) saying that this thread would not last long and get many responses. So my opinion of you has unfortunately altered for the worse, but I don't expect that will concern you.

I could of course have asked simply for people's opinions on the outcome of the trial, but I thought I would use the sort of language that I felt more appropriate to an obvious mis-carriage of justice, in my view. One law for the police and another for the rest of us.

I agree with Calum. Rent-a-mob were outside Scotland Yard within just minutes of the verdict. I support the vast majority of protests 100% including those against the methods of the global markets and others involving students, environmentalists, the disabled and workers. I even accept that peaceful protest will become violent protest in the heat of the moment.

But I do have problems with 16 year old Felicity and Sebastian Fotherington-Smythe from Virginia Water driving the family Merc to a "Stone the Oil Barons" event. This generally occurs ahead of their time at Oxford, a year in accountancy, brief stints in Whitehall as Special Advisers, and their election in two constituencies located deep in the Shires.

They don't do us any favours and appear so regularly from decade to decade I wouldn't be at all surprised if they were placed.

[Ariosto]

You've lost me there Lateral - maybe you are thinking too lateral ... I've never heard of the Fotherington-Smythes but maybe I lead a too sheltered life, or maybe it's because I have a life!

[Lateralthinking1]

You've lost me there Lateral - maybe you are thinking too lateral ... I've never heard of the Fotherington-Smythes but maybe I lead a too sheltered life, or maybe it's because I have a life!

Ariosto, I didn't get where I am today by having a life.

[amateur51]

Ariosto, I didn't get where I am today by having a life.

[vinteuil]

You've lost me there Lateral - maybe you are thinking too lateral ... I've never heard of the Fotherington-Smythes but maybe I lead a too sheltered life, or maybe it's because I have a life!

... I think Llateral meant the ffotherington-Smythes - you must know them, surely? The Gloucestershire ffotherington-Smythes? - Binkie and Boffo's cousins - the ones Tiggie van der Plump pushed in the lake?? Such a hoot!!

[amateur51]

... I think Llateral meant the ffotherington-Smythes - you must know them, surely? The Gloucestershire ffotherington-Smythes? - Binkie and Boffo's cousins - the ones Tiggie van der Plump pushed in the lake?? Such a hoot!!

Not Fotherington-Thomas, friend of Molesworth? "Hello sky! Hello trees!"

[Lateralthinking1]

... I think Llateral meant the ffotherington-Smythes - you must know them, surely? The Gloucestershire ffotherington-Smythes? - Binkie and Boffo's cousins - the ones Tiggie van der Plump pushed in the lake?? Such a hoot!!

Spot on vinteuil.

It was such a shame about Binkie and that poisoned veggie burger in the festival tent. Boffo though must surely be a Prime Minister in waiting. Stroke of genius injecting heroin next to Dimbleby and then demanding the electric chair for dopeheads.

[scottycelt]

Quite right Scotty. But your last sentence regarding an anti-police brigade is maybe just a touch over the top? If you are hinting that I'm anti-police then you should come out and say it - and then I can put the record straight in saying that I am not anti-police. But I am extremely critical of them, in certain conditions and under certain circumstances.

'Come out'? ... not likely, Ariosto ... !!

Of course, my remark was a general one and, in any case, I did use the word 'appears'. As we all know, appearances sometimes can be quite deceptive!

I duly note what you have now put on record ...

[vinteuil]

Not Fotherington-Thomas, friend of Molesworth? "Hello sky! Hello trees!"

... Fotherington Tomas was no friend of Molesworth. He was a gurl and a sissy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fotherington-Thomas

[french frank]

It was cowardly because Mr Tomlinson was clearly incapable of defending himself and the officer attacked him from behind as he was walking (staggering) away.

Yes, he appeared to be one in a line of police officers, under no threat at that point, and there was no reason for him to take any action at all.

Some might blame Mr Tomlinson' s alcoholism for him being in that situation in the first place but that in no way excuses the policeman's unprovoked violence [...]

True up to a point, but a complicating factor was that after the first post mortem recorded death from heart failure, the second (and third?) recorded the cause of death as abdominal injury and cirrhosis of the liver. So, unless one is determined not to find any kind of mitigating factor, one might say that it was unfortunate for the officer that a man of only 47 should die from being pushed over (I think he was hit on the back of his legs with the truncheon).

The coroner recorded a verdict of 'unlawful killing', but does that in law necessarily equate with 'manslaughter' (or, in other circumstances, murder) which was the charge? (I don't know, but I assume it doesn't).

There's a whole moral discussion about culpability as it relates to what a person actually does and the result of that action: if a person who is drunk gets into a car and knocks down a pedestrian, is he less guilty if that pedestrian only suffers a fractured shoulder than if the pedestrian is killed? Or, to put it the other way round, is he equally guilty if the pedestrian suffers a relatively minor injury compared with if the pedestrian is killed? Does the extent of your guilt really just depend on good or bad luck?

Edit: Full inquest verdict was: Abdominal haemorrhage due to blunt force trauma to the abdomen in association with cirrhosis of the liver.

[Flosshilde]

How do you get an abdominal injury from being hit on the back of the legs?