Police attacked while helping dying man

Police officers came under attack while they tried to help a dying man at the G20 protests in the City, Scotland Yard said.

The victim was found by a member of the public unconscious in the street near the Bank of England just before 7.30pm yesterday.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said officers arrived on the scene to help and had to move the casualty away for urgent treatment after bottles were thrown at them by protesters.

The man was eventually pronounced dead at hospital. According to one protester at the scene he was in his 30s and died of natural causes.

The Met Police spokesman said: “A member of the public went to a police officer on a cordon in Birchin Lane, junction with Cornhill to say that there was a man who had collapsed round the corner.

“That officer sent two police medics through the cordon line and into St Michael’s Alley where they found a man who had stopped breathing.”

Police moved him to an area outside the Royal Exchange Building where they attempted resuscitation.

The spokesman added: “The officers took the decision to move him as during this time a number of missiles – believed to be bottles – were being thrown at them.”

London Ambulance Service said “extensive efforts” were made to resuscitate the man both at the scene and on the way to hospital, where he was pronounced dead.