THE pathologist whose flawed postmortem led police to treat the death of Bob Woolmer, the Pakistan cricket coach, as murder is under pressure to resign.

Police in Jamaica will this week be forced to make a humiliating admission that they now believe Woolmer, 58, died of natural causes. The Sunday Times revealed two weeks ago that a review of the postmortem by an eminent British pathologist found that Woolmer had not been strangled.

A second review, carried out by a Canadian pathologist, has reached the same conclusion. Detectives in Jamaica now have little choice but to conclude that Woolmer died of heart failure brought on by chronic ill health and possibly diabetes.

Mark Shields, the former Scotland Yard detective who led the investigation, now faces criticism for his handling of the case. However, sources close to Shields blame Dr Ere Seshaiah, the Kingston pathologist who carried out the postmortem.

Shields himself said: “Usually we investigate a murder and we look for suspects but on this occasion, because of the lack of evidence to support the pathologist what we’ve done is gone out to prove it’s not a murder.

“We have to go with what the pathologist gives, and if I’d ignored it and it had turned out to be true I would have been lambasted for not treating it seriously.”

Woolmer was found dead in his room at the Pegasus hotel in Kingston on March 18, the day after Pakistan lost to Ireland in the World Cup. There were traces of vomit but no bruises on his neck and no sign of a struggle.

Seshaiah said after his initial autopsy that the cause of death was inconclusive. When he reexamined the body, he decided Woolmer’s death was the result of “asphyxiation as a result of manual strangulation”, pointing to bruises in tissues of the neck.

Despite the initial uncertainty, his findings were enough to convince police. Shields stated he was “100% certain” that Woolmer had been strangled to death.

The police decided against carrying out a second postmortem, and sources close to the investigation later claimed “significant” levels of herbicide had been found in Woolmer’s body, suggesting he had been poisoned.

It was only when the postmortem report and photos were examined by Dr Nat Carey, the British pathologist, that the investigation began to fall apart. Carey concluded it was more likely that the bruising in Woolmer’s neck was the result of the postmortem itself.

Jamaica police are yet to receive the toxicology reports, which are being reviewed by Scotland Yard, but it is understood that only tiny amounts of weedkiller have been found.

Seshaiah said: “I can’t comment. I didn’t get any report.”