ES News email The latest headlines in your inbox twice a day Monday - Friday plus breaking news updates Enter your email address Continue Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in Register with your social account or click here to log in I would like to receive lunchtime headlines Monday - Friday plus breaking news alerts, by email Update newsletter preferences

The Met is preparing to make a formal apology to relatives of Ian Tomlinson as part of a compensation deal with the dead newspaper vendor’s family.

Under the agreement, which is due to be confirmed within days, Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe is expected to spell out the force’s regret over the way in which Mr Tomlinson died and the police role in his death.

The apology is also expected to admit errors in the disciplinary processes which allowed Pc Simon Harwood, the former Metropolitan Police officer who struck the news vendor shortly before he died, to escape punishment for at least one earlier incident.

But details of exactly how much Mr Tomlinson’s widow Julia Dawood and their children will receive as compensation will remain secret because of a confidentiality clause agreed by both sides.

The only indication of the scale of the payout, which could amount to hundreds of thousands of pounds, has come in a document showing that London’s deputy mayor for policing, Stephen Greenhalgh, has authorised the Met to “increase the sum offered to reach the settlement”.

Sources today declined to comment because of the legal sensitivity of the deal and the risk that a last-minute hitch could delay a settlement that has taken

Mr Tomlinson, 47, died shortly after being hit by a police baton and shoved to the ground during the G20 protests in London in April 2009. Pc Harwood, was cleared by a jury of manslaughter last year, but dismissed without notice from the Met after a disciplinary panel found him guilty of gross misconduct.

An inquest had also earlier ruled that Mr Tomlinson was unlawfully killed and had died as a result of internal bleeding connected with his heavy fall, his diseased liver and Pc Harwood’s actions.

The inquest, in May 2011, also found that Pc Harwood had used “excessive and unreasonable” force in hitting Mr Tomlinson with a baton.

After the news vendor’s death, it emerged that Pc Harwood had a controversial disciplinary record.

A series of allegations were made against him, including an incident where he was accused of knocking a driver over a car door.

He retired from the Met on medical grounds before disciplinary proceedings were resolved, but went on to work as an officer for the Surrey police force and eventually returned to the Met in 2004 to work in public order.

Scotland Yard said it could not comment on legal negotiations.