BBC Radio 5 live is reporting that the second postmortem on Ian Tomlinson has found that he died of a internal bleeding in the abdomen and not a heart attack, as police claimed.
The pathologist at the first postmortem has form for jumping the gun with the press and getting things wrong:
Dr Patel is on a Home Office register of accredited forensic pathologists, which is managed on behalf of all police forces by the National Policing Improvement Agency. Questions have twice been asked about his handling of suspicious death cases. In 1999 Dr Patel was disciplined by the GMC after he discussed the medical history of Roger Sylvester, a 30-year-old black man who died in police custody, outside an inquest hearing.
He told reporters: “I am aware from the medical records held at Whittington hospital that Mr Sylvester was a user of crack cocaine.” Sylvester’s family were devastated by the suggestion and contested that he been a user.
[edited for links as more reports become available]
