G20 pathologist ‘not qualified for task’

A pathologist who conducted the first post-mortem examination on Ian Tomlinson, who collapsed at last year's G20 protests, was not qualified to be on the Home Office list of forensic experts, The Report programme on BBC Radio 4 was claiming today.

Dr Freddy Patel found the 47-year-old died of a heart attack. But two later examinations found he died from internal bleeding caused by being hit by a blunt instrument.

The CPS cited the conflict as the reason the policeman who hit him before he fell could not be charged.

The doctor, whose full name is Mohmed Saeed Sulema Patel, is under investigation by the General Medical Council over other cases.

After the Tomlinson case, he was suspended from the Home Office register of accredited forensic pathologists and barred from carrying out post-mortem examinations in suspicious death cases.

The BBC says Dr Patel was not in a group practice, did not participate in peer reviewing and did not have a contract with any police force, meaning he not meet criteria for forensic pathology set out by the Home Office in 2006.