Video of the police attack on Ian Tomlinson

guardian.co.uk

A separate postmortem examination into the death of Ian Tomlinson carried out on behalf of the policeman filmed hitting him at the G20 protests last year has been withheld from the authorities, it has emerged.

The autopsy, the third on the newspaper seller's body, was jointly conducted by the forensic pathologist Ben Swift at the request of lawyers for PC Simon Harwood, who is shown striking Tomlinson in a video revealed by the Guardian.

Harwood's lawyers have withheld Swift's report from the Crown Prosecution Service and the Independent Police Commission, citing legal privilege, according to the BBC.

The CPS confirmed it had not been handed a copy of Swift's report by Ben Swift as it was defence material, so the CPS was "not entitled to see it".

Paul Matthews, the City of London coroner who carried out the inquest into Tomlinson's death, was also denied access, the BBC reported.

"I have not so far obtained sight of it," Matthews said of the report. "I simply wish to marker down that I wish to pursue this."

The BBC said Matthews was pursuing gaining access to the report and claimed he had "doubts" about the decision to withhold it.

Matthews has defended the use of the controversial pathologist Freddy Patel, who carried out the first inquest. Last week Patel was suspended from practice for three months by the General Medical Council after being found guilty of misconduct in three earlier autopsy cases.

Matthews said he was unaware of the proceedings against Patel when he was appointed. "He was a fully registered medical practitioner and was also on the Home Office list of accredited forensic pathologists," he said in a statement.

Patel said Tomlinson died of a heart attack. Swift's joint examination and a second autopsy suggested he died from internal bleeding.

In July Keir Starmer QC, the director of public prosecutions, announced that no charges would be brought against Harwood, citing complications surrounding Patel's evidence.