Heart expert Kevin Channer appears to dispute cause of death of newspaper seller hit by PC Simon Harwood at G20 protests

This article is more than 9 years old

This article is more than 9 years old

A leading heart specialist appeared to rule out the theory that Ian Tomlinson died of a heart attack at the G20 protests, at the inquest into his death has .

Tomlinson, a newspaper seller, collapsed and died less than three minutes after being hit with a baton and pushed to the ground by a police officer, PC Simon Harwood, during the demonstrations near the Bank of England.

He had been trying to get home from work at around 7.20pm on 1 April 2009 when he encountered the Metropolitan police officer.

Paramedics were unable to resuscitate Tomlinson, a father of nine, who was pronounced dead more than an hour later.

Prof Kevin Channer, a heart expert at Royal Hallamshire hospital, was asked by the inquest to analyse chart readings from a defibrillator that was used on Tomlinson by paramedics.

Channer's expert evidence, contained in a report to the inquest, was that the electrocardiogram (ECG) data obtained by paramedics as they fought to resuscitate Tomlinson was inconsistent with an arrhythmic heart attack. The heart pulse data was however consistent with the 47-year-old dying of internal bleeding, Channer said.

The medical cause of Tomlinson's death has proved a key area of controversy in his inquest, which is now in its fourth week.

The first pathologist to examine the body, Dr Freddy Patel, said that when he was unable to find a source of the bleeding in Tomlinson's abdomen, he concluded "through a process of elimination" that the newspaper seller must have died of an arrhythmic heart attack.

Patel, who is no longer on an accredited list of pathologists, said the type of heart attack would have resulted from Tomlinson's coronary artery disease and could have occurred at any time.

However, his evidence is contradicted by three forensic pathologists who examined the body and found instead that Tomlinson was likely to have died as a result of internal bleeding.

They include Dr Nat Cary, who also gave evidence at the inquest on Monday. He said Channer's report meant there was now "only one real possibility.

"It doesn't matter how you look at this case, whether you look at the heart and the coronary arteries or heart, you look at the ECG traces and clinical status, you come to the same view," Cary said.

"Mr Tomlinson did not die due to a so-called heart attack, or arrhythmic heart attack, due to coronary artery disease."

Cary previously told the inquest that he believed that Harwood's violent shove of the newspaper seller was likely to have been the cause of his death.

He said video footage showed Tomlinson's elbow was caught between his body and the ground, which would have been sufficient to cause a "blunt force trauma" internal injury, most likely to the liver, which was badly diseased.

When Patel was presented with Channer's findings, he appeared to alter his explanation of a heart attack, indicating that Tomlinson may have suffered a "very transient" form of arrhythmic heart attack and then recovered spontaneously, before then losing consciousness.

He also introduced an previously unmentioned explanation for the death: hypoxia, or the deprivation of adequate oxygen supply. Paramedics previously told the inquest that they had ruled out hypoxia when they went to Tomlinson's aid.

Patel confirmed to the judge that he had made no prior mention of hypoxia as a cause of death in his two official postmortem reports.

When it was suggested the to Patel that he was introducing a entirely new cause of the death in his fourth day of evidence, he momentarily fell silent.

The jury was previously told that Patel has since September been suspended twice by the General Medical Council, including for professional misconduct and dishonesty.

Matthew Ryder, counsel for the inquest, said: "I am sorry to say, Dr Patel, I suggest you are reaching for options because you know, now, or you realise now, the conclusion that you have put forward is not a solid one, and cannot be sustained."

The pathologist replied: "I do not agree with that at all."

Earlier, a consultant liver expert, Dr Graeme Alexander, told the jury his view was that Tomlinson had died of internal bleeding in the abdomen, caused by trauma to his liver after his fall.

He said that Tomlinson's serious liver disease would have made him much more susceptible to collapse from internal bleeding than another person.

Alexander added that Patel's suggestion that an absence of damage to a capsule surrounding the liver indicated it could not have been the source of bleeding was "not a relevant argument at all".

"I have a ward full of patients with liver disease, and if they have a cardiac arrest on the ward it is safe bet that they have bled," Alexander said.

The inquest continues.