G20 Ian Tomlinson assault: no CCTV cameras

Well, well, well. Nick Hardwick, chairman of the "Independent" Police Complaints Commission, reveals today that there were no CCTV cameras in the area where Ian Tomlinson was assaulted by a rioting policeman. And here's me thinking that the cameras in the area would prove to be defective in some way, as in the Jean Charles de Menezes case.

What an amazing coincidence! We have the most CCTV cameras per capita in the whole planet, and there are none covering that particular spot. It is almost incredible. To quote Hillaire Belloc, "it made you gasp and stretch your eyes".

I do not suppose any observant Londoner has noticed any pale patches on the walls in the area, suggestive of recent removal of brackets, CCTV for the placement of?

[update 12.4.09: Ah. Now it seems that there were no functioning CCTV cameras. That sounds more like it. It would be a waste of taxpayer's money to send someone round to remove them, when it is so much cheaper and quicker to disable them, or to claim they are disabled.

.pdf here on CCTV cameras

From a Libertarian blog:

A new video has come to light showing the arrival of 2 ambulances which had been called to assist Ian Tomlinson.

What this video shows is a) No Riot, b) No Rioters, only calm protesters who cleared a path for the Ambulances, and most importantly c) the Ambulances were impeded and blocked by the police line, which shows an officer at the front apparently telling his colleagues to keep the line in place.

The notes on YouTube placed by davehighbury state:

I filmed this at 19:37 at the junction of Cornhill and Gracechurch. The police blocked the ambulance going to Ian Tomlinson for about 3 minutes.

We should now demand to know who gave the order to impede these ambulances as the 3 minute delay which was recorded by the taker of this video may have been a contributing factor to Ian Tomlinson's death.

RL: 3 minutes could have made the difference between life and death for Mr Tomlinson.