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Metropolitan Police Sergeant Delroy Smellie was cleared of assaulting protestor Nicola Fisher at the memorial to Ian Tomlinson’s killing at last year’s G20 Demonstrations. District Judge Daphne Wickham ruled he acted lawfully despite video evidence posted on the internet showing Smellie thrashing a woman half his size with the back of his hand and a retractable metal baton. Actually, the video shows him backslapping Fisher, throwing some comedy kung-fu shapes, then lashing out with the pointy stick.

Sergeant Smellie, known to some activists at Tombstone Face for his uncanny resemblance to graveyard furniture, walked out of Westminster Magistrates Court with a smile last seen on OJ Simpson. Nicola Fisher, for reasons of her own, chose not to give evidence at the four-day trial.

“That’s him walking free then,” said an activist when Twitter announced that Ms Fisher was staying at her Brighton home instead of giving evidence at the trial. Having sold her story to a national newspaper for £26,000, she must’ve bought a fair dose of cowardice for that sum.

There’s no guarantee Smellie wouldn’t have walked free if the animal rights activist took the stand. But it might have helped. Instead, the trial was heavily laden with testimonies from Smellie’s police colleagues saying that Fisher was acting aggressively brandishing a juice box. The towering TSG officer was obviously defending himself against vegan rage.

Peter Smyth of the Metropolitan Police Federation said that “a ten second clip on You Tube doesn’t tell the whole story”. It tells enough. Delroy Smellie assaulted Nicola Fisher. And she had the bruises to prove it. The Met Police recruitment website says that the position of police officer is one of “responsibility and trust, given only to law-abiding people with proven character and integrity”.

Nicola Fisher has said that she balked at giving evidence because she did not want to be subjected to a defence cross-examination. That she was suffering from depression and lacked confidence in the abilities of the prosecution. So a lawyer hired to defend an ultraviolent thug in uniform may have to ask some difficult questions of a woman who was exercising her democratic right to protest. Diddums. If you’re not ready to defend your actions in a court of law when you’ve obviously been assaulted and wronged, don’t run off to the newspapers and sell your story. Don’t bring it to court to allow the police to make a mockery of the justice system by showing that intimidation does work. Don’t insult everyone else who backed you when you were crying injustice.

Since my own arrest, my healthy mistrust of the police has been strengthened by the ridiculous farce played out in the courts involving ordinary citizens. One year on from the G20 protests and the death of Ian Tomlinson, we are still no closer to a decision from the Crown Prosecution Service as to whether they’ll prosecute anyone for that death. Over a year on from the demonstrations that saw thousands of young Muslims vent their anger at Israel’s wanton murder of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, we hear of police actions against teenagers that parallel military raids.

The anger over Sergeant Delroy Smellie’s acquittal is two-pronged. The first prong goes to Smellie, the police and the courts that are opening the door for future assaults. Smellie, after a suspension from service following his charge, is now on back the streets protecting the people of London. The second goes to Nicola Fisher who should have given evidence against the man who assaulted her. Her spinelessness makes her the Clare Short of activists.

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This article was originally published in the The Guardian, 01 April 2010.