Police officer filmed hitting protester is suspended by MET

A POLICE sergeant filmed hitting out at a woman during the G20 protests was suspended amid fresh allegations of police brutality during the summit.

The officer was seen swiping at the female with his hand before apparently hitting her across the legs with a baton in footage on YouTube.

Scotland Yard said the matter raised "immediate concerns" and announced the Independent Police Complaints Commission, already probing the death of Ian Tomlinson, would launch an inquiry.

"The officer has been identified and suspended pending further investigation. The officer works as a sergeant in the territorial support group," a Yard spokesman said.

Labour MP David Winnick condemned what he said was "outright police brutality" while Shami Chakrabarti, of Liberty added: "It is very difficult to understand what justifies a gargantuan police officer assaulting a smaller woman for having the audacity to complain.

"It is no doubt a pressure cooker environment, however highly-trained professionals are supposed to be better at defusing the situation."
David Howarth, Liberal Democrat justice spokesman, called for a "full-scale inquiry".

He said: "The fact that this video shows another example of an officer with his number obscured assaulting a member of the public indicates that there is a systematic problem here, not just a series of individual acts of misconduct.

"The question is on my mind whether the police are using a some kind of 'designated hitter' system."

According to the Guardian, footage of the confrontation was taken at the Bank of England the day after Mr Tomlinson's death.

The IPCC previously said it remained hopeful that fresh CCTV footage would help piece together Mr Tomlinson's final moments.

Investigators are trying to trace the 47-year-old newspaper seller's movements around the fringes of angry demonstrations outside the Bank of England.

Mr Tomlinson collapsed and died from a heart attack after clashing with police officers at least once as he walked home across the City.

A Metropolitan Police constable caught on camera hitting Mr Tomlinson with a baton and pushing him to the ground has also been suspended from duty.

A spokeswoman for the IPCC said there were a number of public and private CCTV cameras in the streets around where Mr Tomlinson died.

She said an earlier statement by the watchdog's chairman Nick Hardwick that "there is no CCTV footage" may not be accurate as investigators continued to trawl through hours of evidence.

The spokesman said: "From the outset it has been a main line of our inquiry to recover all CCTV from the Corporation of London and from all private premises in the area.

"This work is ongoing and involves many hours of viewing and detailed analysis."

Mr Tomlinson died as more than 5,000 protesters converged on the City of London on April 1 to mark the G20 summit in Docklands.

Amateur video footage captured by a New York fund manager emerged several days later of him being pushed to the ground by a policeman.

Other photographs have also come to light of Mr Tomlinson apparently remonstrating with officers in a riot van in Lombard Street up to an hour earlier.

Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson said the images of Mr Tomlinson being struck "raised obvious concerns" as questions arose over the police tactic of "kettling" demonstrators – penning them in – to prevent them moving freely.