New police brutality video emerges

"NOW you know why the police are called the Filth."

This is not a quote from an anarchist blog but one of the 'best rated' comments on the website of the conservative UK newspaper The Mail.

The site includes a video showing how "burly police sergeant flings an innocent 5ft 2in woman on to a concrete floor, knocking her unconscious".

Former soldier Mark Andrews has been convicted of assaulting 57-year-old market researcher Pamela Somerville.

And The Mail points out: "The incident, in the sleepy Wiltshire market town of Melksham, will inevitably stoke debate about the deteriorating relationship between the public and the police following the death of newspaper vendor Ian Tomlinson, pushed to the ground by a police officer during last year’s G20 protests."

Other comments on the Mail site include:

"The police should never be above the law, but they always are."

"This is how police brutality is allowed to flourish because the other officers are keeping quiet and typically not protecting the public they are paid to protect."

"Makes you wonder how many more like him in the police."

"Cowardice seems to be prevalent in our Police force."

"No wonder so many people now have such contempt for them."

Policeman lied about assault

A BRITISH policeman faces jail after attacking a man in the street in Wigan and then lying about what had happened.

Reports The Daily Mail: "Special Constable Peter Lightfoot, 40, was captured on CCTV striking Mark Aspinall's head on the ground, rubbing his face in the tarmac and hitting him with his police helmet as he was restrained during an arrest.

"He claimed that Mr Aspinall, 24, who was then a Lance Corporal with the Royal Mechanical engineers, had been struggling violently as he and two other officers tried to arrest him after he was ejected from a nightclub for being drunk.

"During a three week trial at Manchester's Minshull Street Crown Court, the court heard that Mr Aspinall had been charged and convicted of two counts of assaulting a police officer in July 2008, but had later had his conviction quashed at Liverpool Crown Court following an appeal.

"In the appeal hearing, Lightfoot told the court under oath that he did not strike Mr Aspinall with a helmet and did not strike his head against the road claiming, 'I did not rub his face in the tarmac there, I was holding his head down'."

The case stands in stark contrast to that concerning Ian Tomlinson, where the video evidence of the fatal police assault was deemed insufficient evidence for a prosecution.