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Police have admitted to battery, false imprisonment and causing “harm and damage” to former Greens candidate Hannah Thomas, who suffered permanent eyesight damage during an unlawful arrest at an anti-Israel protest in Sydney last year.
Court documents from the civil case launched by Thomas after the arrest also reveal police have conceded she is entitled to damages and have offered to pay her “reasonable” medical expenses. Thomas went through multiple surgeries and suffered permanent damage to her vision and ongoing side effects following the arrest.
Thomas suffered a serious eye injury after police broke up an anti-Israel protest outside SEC Plating on June 27, a business in Belmore. She was one of five protesters charged after the demonstration, which prompted criticism of police because of doubts over which laws officers relied on to break up the demonstration.
Thomas was charged while still in hospital with resisting arrest and refusing an order to disperse following the protest.
But the charges against Thomas and three of the four other protesters were eventually dropped. An officer, a 33-year-old senior constable, was subsequently charged with assault over her arrest. The charge was later upgraded to also include recklessly causing grievous bodily harm, an offence which carries up to 14 years in prison. He has pled not guilty, with the matter set for hearing next February.
But in a separate civil case launched by Thomas after the charges against her were dropped, police have conceded she is entitled to damages over the arrest, which they concede caused her “harm and damage”.
In a defence filed in the NSW Supreme Court, police also conceded Thomas was a victim of battery by officers, and was “unlawfully imprisoned” following the protest. It states police have agreed to pay “reasonable” medical costs stemming from her injuries.
The documents, seen by the Herald, also reveal Thomas’ lawyers will allege she was punched in the face by the officer while he was holding a police-issued torch.
The statement of claim says Thomas will seek aggravated and exemplary damages from the state, alleging that as a result of the arrest she suffered both significant injuries and an ongoing “distrust and fear” of police.
It alleges the conduct of the officer in “gratuitously punching” Thomas was “unwarranted, manifestly excessive, was completely inconsistent with and represented a grave departure from” his powers as a police officer.
While police denied those damages claims, it noted the officer’s current criminal charges and conceded Thomas was entitled to damages.
Thomas’ civil case against police comes in the context of a string of recent high-profile incidents which have raised questions about the conduct of NSW police officers. Earlier this month, the ABC’s Four Corners aired a series of disturbing allegations regarding officer conduct which again prompted questions about the powers of the police watchdog the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission.
A recent survey by the Bureau of Crime Statistics found confidence in police has dropped to its lowest level in more than a decade.
The protest outside SEC Plating was the second which had been held at the same location. The Herald has previously revealed officers involved in arrests at the protest said they were told by a senior officer to show “no tolerance” and issue move-on directions to everyone who attended.
Police also initially claimed in a statement of facts tendered in court as part of the prosecution against Thomas blamed “interference” from other protesters for her injury. In the days after her arrest, Assistant Commissioner Brett McFadden told media he had conducted a “preliminary review” of body-worn footage from the arrest and that there was “no information at this stage before me that indicates any misconduct” by officers.
Thomas’ lawyers will claim she was a victim of misfeasance in public office because, they allege, that instruction was contrary to police powers. Police deny that, as well as the claim that officers acted with malice by pursuing a prosecution against her for three months, deliberately made false representations and created a “false narrative” following the arrest.
Her lawyers claim McFadden’s statement to the media contributed to damages by “minimising or evading police responsibility”, which police also denied.
After multiple surgeries – and being warned she was at risk of never regaining vision in her right eye – Thomas has suffered permanent damage to her eyesight and suffers from ongoing side effects.
In a statement, a spokesman for NSW Police said: “As the matter is currently litigated in the courts, it is inappropriate to respond at this time”.
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