Video evidence in trial of Simon Harward, the police officer charged with the manslaughter of Ian Tomlinson

This is the video evidence compiled by investigators from the Independent Police Complaints Commission. Once again the Guardian newspaper has played a crucial role in uncovering evidence which the police would otherwise have covered up. Yesterday, the Guardian reported that the jury in the trial of Simon Harwood had watching this evidence. Please do read the report at that link. The Guardian reports:

They also saw several video angles of the moment when Harwood, a member of the Metropolitan police’s Territorial Support Group unit, struck Tomlinson on the leg with a baton as the 47-year-old walked away from police lines, his hands in his pockets. Harwood then shoved Tomlinson to the ground causing, the prosecution alleges, internal bleeding which killed him within little more than half an hour.

The video is comprised from a series of clips from various sources, which show Ian Tomlinson’s attempt to walk home on 1st April 2009. His preferred route is frustrated by various police lines, who are engaged in confronting protestors against the G20 meeting of world leaders. Each clip is numbered, for easy reference, although the number “1″ for the first clip seems to have been obscured by a grey mask surrounding the actual footage, which comes from an underground station CCTV camera. Mr Tomlinson enters the clip from the right at 0:20 wearing dark coloured tracksuit leggings with a white stripe down the legs, a dark blue shirt and a shorter sleeved pale blue top over the top of the darker shirt. He has his left hand in his pocket.

After that every clip is preceded by a map, which shows Mr Tomlinson’s route. His route is marked out in a yellow line. The position of the camera which captured each clip is also shown as a yellow disc with an arrow showing the direction the camera is pointing in, like this:

Best practice for presenting video evidence in court includes these explanatory maps.

In May 2011 an inquest jury found that Mr Tomlinson had been unlawfully killed and that the push and baton strike by Simon Harwood had involved unreasonable force.

Simon Harwood’s trial continues.