Press Association and others report today that PC Simon Harwood will become the first officer to face a public Metropolitan Police disciplinary inquiry.
This move towards greater openness will be welcomed by the press and help the Met Police repair the harm done by its earlier obfuscation following Tomlinson’s death.
Here Guardian journalist Paul Lewis writes about how he was encouraged to “lay off” the story by those briefing on behalf of the Met. Last year he told Press Gazette about how the police tried to get The Guardian to take video of the moment Tomlinson was pushed down from its website, and that they tried to dissuade the man’s family from talking to the press.
The proposal to hold a first Met Police disciplinary hearing in public follows consultation by the General Medical Council to move the other way and hold more of its hearings into malpractice by doctors in secret.
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