'Help me!' – Greens candidate hospitalised after alleged NSW police assault

Greens MP lashes the NSW premier over alleged police brutality at small Sydney protest

Former Greens candidate for Grayndler, Hannah Thomas, was hospitalised with a severe eye injury after allegedly manhandled by police

A peaceful picket in the western Sydney suburb of Belmore this morning escalated into a confrontation with police, leaving Hannah Thomas – the Greens candidate who ran against the prime minister in the seat of Grayndler – with a severe eye injury, eyewitnesses told Deepcut.

At approximately 6am, a small protest of roughly 35 individuals assembled in front of SEC Plating - an electroplating company accused of manufacturing parts used in F-35 fighter jets. The Israeli air force possesses 45 F-35 jets as part of its fleet, which it has reportedly used during what human rights organisations and UN experts have determined is a genocide in Gaza.

The protesters were immediately confronted by a huge show of police force that vastly outnumbered their presence, an eyewitness said.

“I'd say there was close to 50. There could have been even more, double the amount that we had,” a witness told Deepcut, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Police immediately became quite aggravated. Their verbal altercations with all of the protesters as a whole, I would say [was], personally, extremely unprofessional,” they said.

Zack Schofield was among the protesters when he alleges police instructed the small crowd to move on.

“We were immediately instructed by police officers to leave the site,” he told Deepcut. Schofield alleges police deemed the protest unlawful to justify providing move-on orders - a classification he disputes.

“I want to assert quite strongly that the term ‘unlawful protest’ shouldn't carry any legal weight. It's not illegal to protest on public land in New South Wales. And we were on public land. We were on a public footpath,” he said.

Video credit: Amanda King and Fabio Cavadini

The matter soon escalated, Schofield alleges, when the “lead cop” identified him. “He reached into the crowd and placed his hands on me and said that I was under arrest, [and then] extracted me from the crowd,” he claimed.

The crowd then began to disperse and comply with police orders to move on, the other eyewitness alleges, which is when the altercation turned violent.

“We were getting ready to cross the road. We were trying to stay within a distance to make sure that Zack was supported, that there were witnesses. We were getting ready to head back to the car. And just as we were crossing, in that moment, that's when the other protestor was grabbed from the crowd and started to get pulled away,” the witness said. “The police moved in unprovoked and made those arrests,” they added.

In a media release, NSW Police stated that “five people have been arrested following an unauthorised protest in Sydney’s west this morning,” confirming that a 35-year-old woman “sustained facial injuries and was taken to Bankstown Hospital for treatment”.

“As police attempted to arrest the protesters who were not complying with the [move on] directions, a scuffle ensued between police and protesters, during which a police body worn camera was taken by an unknown protester,” the statement claims. “Inquiries are ongoing.”

A video of the alleged altercation shows several police dragging Thomas amid audible pleas of “help me”. Thomas is then dragged to the ground with little visibility as to what transpired next – until she was placed besides Schofield and it became evident what had occurred.

“[She] was placed on the brick wall next to me, and she had blood streaming down the right side of her face and her right eye was closed. She had clearly been been hit with some force,” Schofield said.

The office of Greens NSW MP Sue Higginson confirmed to Deepcut that Thomas was hospitalised and required surgery to the wounded eye today.

"People have been hurt, people have been unnecessarily detained, and one person is undergoing surgery. If a police state is one where people are controlled by force, then NSW is a police state, and Premier Chris Minns sits at the head,” Higginson said.

“Where is the Premier right now, calling this out? This is no accident, it's an act of brutality. Premier Minns has been leading a charge of impunity, rushing through anti-protests laws through the Parliament, some of which are being challenged for being unconstitutional. The Premier must pull back from the edge,” she added.

Federal Greens senator for NSW, David Shoebridge, echoed those remarks.

“When police are deployed to protect weapons companies instead of protecting the right to peaceful protest, we must ask whose interests they are really serving,” he said in a statement.

“The arrest of multiple peaceful protesters who are calling for Australia to stop arming a genocide shows how far we've moved from protecting peaceful dissent,” he added.

Comment has been sought from the office of the NSW premier, Chris Minns.