Family weeps at video of G20 street death

Widow Julia wept uncontrollably as fresh footage was screened of the 47-year-old’s last moments after being shoved to the ground from behind by Pc Simon Harwood.

She told the jury yesterday his death had devastated her family, adding: “I remember feeling he was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Stepson Paul King said he “idolised” Mr Tomlinson.

CCTV images, police helicopter footage and handheld video recordings showed Mr Tomlinson cutting a lonely figure as he staggered away from a police cordon after being hit with a baton and pushed to the ground on the fringes of the anti-summit demonstration in London in 2009.

The footage showed Mr Tomlinson, in his “distinctive” Millwall FC T-shirt, sit up and gesture to police, appearing angry after being sent tumbling to the ground.

Footage then scanned a row of helmeted police officers with dogs and at one point a video microphone picks up the words: “I hope they do that when we go live.”

One family member walked out on proceedings as a combination of CCTV and helicopter footage showed Mr Tomlinson staggering for about 100 yards before he collapsed flat out in Cornhill, near St Michael’s Alley.

After receiving treatment, he was seen being carried through the police cordon. Mr Tomlinson was pronounced dead 40 minutes later on April 1.

Before the encounter with Mr Tomlinson, Pc Harwood was seen trying to arrest a protester.

The jury then watched slow motion footage of Mr Tomlinson being pushed to the ground with his back turned on a row of uniformed officers with dogs.

Two people are then seen helping him to his feet as the police officers look on.

Mr Tomlinson had been drunk on the day of his death but had not shown signs of being aggressive, a police officer told the hearing.

Andrew Brown, then a Pc with City of London police, remembered noticing Mr Tomlinson “shuffling along”.

“Initially I told him he couldn’t go through the cordon,” he told the inquest. “Strangely he didn’t look at me, he was looking over my shoulder.

“He said he had to get home to sleep because he had to work tomorrow. His voice was slurred and he was definitely intoxicated.”

But he added: “Throughout there was no confrontation or any aggression directed towards the police.”

The jury was taken by bus for a five-minute tour of the spot as part of the first day’s evidence.

Jurors walked from the Royal Exchange Buildings to the Starbucks where he collapsed before viewing Change Alley where Mr Tomlinson was initially stopped by the police cordon.

Pc Harwood, a member of the Met’s territorial support group, originally escaped prosecution but faces being sacked under misconduct proceedings.

The jury was told the Crown Prosecution Service could yet review its decision not to pursue charges against officers.

Judge Peter Thornton QC, sitting as assistant deputy coroner at the central London hearing, said the cause of his death was “likely to be a controversial area”.

Dr Freddy Patel’s initial verdict that Mr Tomlinson died of natural causes was contradicted by a second and third pathologist.

In his opening comments, Mr Thornton told the inquest: “There is likely to be controversy too about the finding of Dr Patel in the first post-mortem of the presence of fluid in the abdomen and to what extent it contained blood.”

The inquest continues today.