Op-Ed: Police killers and killers of police

Manchester - Yesterday, PC Simon Harwood was sacked after an internal disciplinary hearing. Although cleared of manslaughter, he is morally responsible for the death of Ian Tomlinson. Today the boot was on the other foot as two policewomen were murdered in Manchester.

It has taken over three years for the family of Ian Tomlinson to see some sort of justice after he was assaulted by then PC Simon Harwood while walking back to his hostel through a demonstration in the City of London. As usual, the privilege money can't buy used every dirty trick imaginable and a few not so to cover up the incident, including bringing in an incompetent pathologist to perform the post mortem, a pathologist who has now been struck off. Yesterday, after being acquitted of manslaughter at Southwark Crown Court in July, Simon Harwood was sacked following an internal disciplinary hearing, one that unusually took place in public. Mr Tomlinson's family walked out of the hearing in disgust. They wanted to hear some sort of ruling that Harwood was responsible for their loved one's death. That issue has already been decided by a jury that deliberated long and hard before returning a not guilty verdict. That verdict was also undoubtedly the correct one, because a reasonable person would not have believed that a man of his age being struck on the back of the leg and then pushed over would have died within minutes of the assault, but neither would a reasonable person have assaulted an innocent man in such a fashion, and for a police officer to do so in any circumstances is unforgivable. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Mark Duggan was another victim of police violence; he was shot dead on August 4 last year. The circumstances of his killing were entirely different from the death of Ian Tomlinson, and again, what happened afterwards was just as disgraceful, because the victim has been slandered by stories planted in a certain tabloid in the same way South Yorkshire Police did after the Hillsborough Stadium tragedy. The trial of the man charged with supplying Mark Duggan with the gun that was not in his possession when he was shot dead by a police marksman has now opened. Although there will be an inquest into Duggan's death, the man who shot him has not been and may never be named, in fact he hasn't even been questioned by the so-called Independent Police Complaints Commission. The moral of this story is if you want to get away with murder, get a warrant card. There may be no such thing as justice, but karma is very real; unfortunately, here as elsewhere, it is the innocent who suffer. This morning in Manchester, two unarmed policewomen were shot dead. One died at the scene, the other died later in hospital. Last month, Greater Manchester Police released CCTV of two men who had exploded a hand grenade in the street. One of the names they gave in this connection was Dale Cregan, who was said to be wanted for questioning in connection with the murder of 46 year old David Short. The victims of today's shooting have now been named; they were Fiona Bone and Nicola Hughes, both WPCs. Shortly afterwards, Dale Cregan walked into a police station and surrendered. A former police officer interviewed by BBC TV this afternoon was interrupted by one of the talking heads when he made inappropriate comments about Mr Cregan, this case now being sub judicae.