G20 protests: One year on
A year has passed since the death of Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protests. Has anything changed?
By Ian Dunt
A year has passed since Ian Tomlinson was pushed to the floor at the G20 protests in central London, and his family are still waiting for justice.
The protests, which saw the police ‘kettle’ protestors in a small area around the Bank of England, prompted a flurry of debate about policing tactics and civil liberties.
Yesterday, Police Sergeant Delroy Smellie was acquitted of assault by Westminster magistrates’ court, having been charged with hitting animal rights activist Nicola Fisher twice with a metal baton while she attended a vigil for Mr Tomlinson the day after his death.
He will now return to operational duties although an Independent Police Complaints Commission report may prompt misconduct charges.
Mr Tomlinson’s wife, Julia, has criticised the director of public prosecutions Keir Starmer for the lack of action in relation to her husband’s death.
“We feel like there was a cover-up from day one, and we didn’t see it because we were nervous about the police,” she said.
“Now a year on it still feels like all of that is still going on. If it had been someone on the street, a civilian, who had pushed and hit Ian just before he died, and it was all caught on video, surely something would have happened by now.”
But the events of one year ago have triggered modest change.
A 200 page report by the chief inspector of constabulary, Denis O’Connor, called for an overhaul in the policing of protests, saying that current tactics risked alienating the public.
And a London Civil Liberties Panel, set up by mayor Boris Johnson in the aftermath of the G20, demanded better communication with protestors.
Officers who hide their collar numbers, thereby preventing identification, faced stringent attacks from across the political spectrum.
Kettling – frowned upon by many civil libertarians and activists – remains a viable police tactic, but officers will be wary of using it after the level of controversy prompted by the G20 protests.
