The Independent Police Complaints Commission is to investigate the Met and City of London Police into the 'misinformation' that followed the death of Ian Tomlinson.

Mr Tomlinson died after "coming into contact with police" at the G20 protests in April.

His family complained that the Met knew its officers had contact with the newspaper seller - alleging that the force issued "misinformation" about the level of contact until a video emerged six days later showing an officer pushing Mr Tomlinson to the ground and hitting him with his baton.

Scotland Yard press briefings were similar to those given just after Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes was mistakenly shot dead - that he vaulted the tube barriers, was acting suspiciously and ignored police warnings for him to stop.

All allegations which were later found to be false.

"Failed to correct information"

IPCC deputy chairman Deborah Glass said:

"Not only the Tomlinson family but also many members of the public and MPs have raised with us concerns about whether the police either misinformed the public about the circumstances of Mr Tomlinson's death or failed to correct misinformation about how he died.

I have therefore decided that, not only will we investigate the family's specific complaint about the content and timing of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) media communications on the night of April 1, but that we should also seek to determine, as far as practicable, the state of knowledge that both the MPS and City of London Police had about any police contact with Ian Tomlinson between April 1 2009 and April 7 2009."

The IPCC is also carrying out another three investigations into allegations that officers assaulted members of the public at the G20 protests.

Cover up denied – second post-mortem

Indications were that the man had died of natural causes, and then there were briefings that he had been struck by a missile. Scotland Yard has denied there was a cover up.

A second examination by the IPCC, they say they were 'locked out' of the first post-mortem by City Police who were initially handling the investigation, showed that Tomlinson died of an abdominal haemorrhage, massive internal bleeding - his family was told by police that he died of natural causes.

Such an injury could have been caused by blunt trauma - a video shows Tomlinson calmly walking away from police lines with his hands in his pockets then struck with a baton to the back of the legs and forcibly pushed forward, falling heavily.

He was not a protester, but was caught behind police cordons on his way home.

IPCC also caught out for 'misinformation'

The IPCC itself is not beyond approach, its boss wrongly told Channel 4 news there was no CCTV evidence in the area Tomlinson was allegedly assaulted.

The IPCC initially stood by Hardwick's claims, saying:

"Mr Hardwick said there was no available CCTV footage of the incident and we stand by that. Any footage that is available, whether taken by police or by the public, will be fully investigated as and when it becomes available."

However, by 10.30am, after pictures were published showing cameras in the area, the IPCC changed its stance. Stating:

"At this point, Mr Hardwick believed that he was correct in this assertion – we now know this may not be accurate, there are cameras in the surrounding area."

The IPCC would not comment on why, almost two weeks after Tomlinson's death and one week after it saying investigators had pieced together his last moments by looking at "many hours of CCTV", that their boss had been mistaken about the locations of cameras.

Former IPCC member John Crawley has accused the commission of being "too close" to the police - the investigation into Tomlinson's death was initially handed over to City of London police.