A police officer has been charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm of Hannah Thomas, says the NSW Greens MP Sue Higginson.
Higginson said in a statement: ‘This has renewed pressure to stand down Assistant Commissioner Brett McFadden after he told the media he had reviewed the body camera footage that showed the assault, and saw “no information at this stage that’s before me that indicates any misconduct on behalf of my officers”. ‘
Thomas was punched in the face at a peaceful anti-Israel protest outside weapons-plating corporation SEC Plating in Belmore in June.
Higginson says she has written to the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission, the Police Commissioner and the Police Minister Yasmin Catley, calling for McFadden to be stood down as an Assistant Commissioner, and for an immediate investigation into his conduct.
She said, ‘Labor Premier Chris Minns is also facing pressure to repeal his anti-protest laws, which are claimed to be contributing to an escalation in police brutality toward peaceful protesters’.
‘Charges initially laid against Ms Thomas have now been withdrawn, and she and four fellow protesters have been awarded over $40,000 in costs. Ms Thomas has also lodged a civil claim against the NSW Police’.
‘It’s a just and welcomed step to see charges finally laid against the police officer who brutally assaulted Hannah Thomas while she was attending a peaceful protest. But there is more to the police brutality and misconduct on that day, there are now serious questions over the police misconduct following the incident and we must confront the source of this injustice, the impunity given to police by Labor Premier Chris Minns through the anti-protest laws and rhetoric he espouses’.
‘It would now appear that Assistant Commissioner Brett McFadden blatantly tried to cover up the violent assault on Hannah Thomas. Commissioner McFadden reviewed body camera footage that shows Ms Thomas being assaulted, and then told the media he saw no evidence of police misconduct. He excused police violence towards an innocent woman, he argued against further oversight, and under his leadership police issued statements criticising the very protesters they had assaulted.
‘Assistant Commissioner McFadden needs to stand down immediately. I have written urgently to Police Minister Yasmin Catley, the Police Commissioner and to the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission calling for him to be stood down and for an investigation into his misconduct.
‘Police should not have been given the power or the impunity to issue move-on directions to peaceful protesters who were committing no crime. We saw that police referenced Chris Minns’ new draconian anti-protest laws in their fact sheet, referring to a place of worship in Belmore to justify the violent arrest of Hannah Thomas and her fellow protesters,”
‘The Premier now also needs to apologise for laying the blame at Ms Thomas’ feet and implying she was responsible for her own assault, without even viewing the body camera footage himself.
‘It is really concerning that Hannah Thomas was not made aware that these charges had been laid, the first she heard was in media reports. There’s a complete disregard towards victims of police brutality from NSW Police and it’s got to change’, she added.
“This demonisation of peaceful protest is reckless political behaviour and it leads to innocent people of good conscience getting hurt. Innocent people have the right to peacefully call for an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and they have the right to do so without being victims of heinous police brutality at the hands of an emboldened NSW Police force”.
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