Lawyers are investigating whether protesters could sue New South Wales police over alleged excessive use of force during a pro-Palestine protest in Sydney, after which the former Greens candidate Hannah Thomas said she could lose sight in her right eye.
Thomas, 35, who ran against the prime minister at the federal election, was arrested at the Belmore protest which was attended by about 60 people on Friday. She was subsequently taken to hospital and underwent surgery.
O’Brien Criminal and Civil Solicitors said on Monday it was acting for several people involved in the protest, including Thomas, and the firm was “investigating the viability of civil proceedings”.
Principal solicitor Peter O’Brien said in a statement that what happened to Thomas was “deeply concerning”.
Thomas and four others were arrested and charged after Friday’s protest outside a business accused of “supplying electroplating and surface coating services for a variety of applications including aerospace and defence technology” to Israel.
The 35-year-old was charged with resisting police and refusing or failing to comply with a direction to disperse.
O’Brien said in a statement: “Given that recent changes in the law in relation to protests have attempted to expand police powers to give directions, now subject to constitutional challenge, police may well have felt emboldened to act without proper and lawful acknowledgment of the right to protest.”
“The government was warned that these changes to expand police powers to disperse protestors could lead to serious and ugly confrontations,” the lawyer said.
“Hannah Thomas has sustained a serious and potentially life-altering injury. She now finds herself not only recovering in hospital but also facing charges for allegedly resisting police.”
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The assistant police commissioner Brett McFadden on Monday morning denied any police wrongdoing. McFadden told the ABC he had reviewed body-worn-camera footage, and it did not show “any misconduct on behalf of my officers”.
On Monday afternoon, McFadden declared a critical incident investigation into Thomas’s arrest after police determined “the level of injury warranted a critical incident declaration”. Police said they had requested Thomas’s medical information multiple times before being given the information needed to declare a critical incident.
The investigation would be overseen by the police watchdog, the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission.
The NSW Labor government passed legislation earlier this year aimed at curbing antisemitism. It expanded police move-on powers for protests near places of worship.
The protest does not have to be directed at the place of worship. The legislation does not define how “near” a person must be to a place of worship before police can enact the powers.
A constitutional challenge now under way against the laws by the Palestine Action Group recently heard that the catalyst for the laws was a protest outside a synagogue where a member of the Israel Defense Forces was speaking.
The reforms were met with a fierce backlash, including from one Labor MLC who told an internal meeting it was the most “draconian” change to protest laws in decades.
The NSW Greens spokesperson for justice, Sue Higginson, wrote a letter to Minns on Monday urging the charges against Thomas and four other protesters to be withdrawn.
She urged Minns to repeal the anti-protest laws, arguing they were “introduced as a mechanism to chill legitimate and peaceful political expression in NSW”.
Minns told reporters on Monday that police did not use the controversial places of worship legislation and instead relied on previously existing powers.
However, Higginson rebutted this, arguing NSW police “expressly included references to a place of worship in their fact sheets that describe the alleged offences that led to the arrests and assault at Belmore”.
Police alleged one protester was issued a second move-on order after she walked “across the road to the opposite side of SEC Plating which is a place of worship”.
The protest was outside SEC Plating, which protesters claimed was manufacturing parts used in the F-35 jet program. However, SEC Plating has denied that this is the case.
The business is across the road from a mosque called the Teebah Islamic Association.
Police arrested and charged five people, including Thomas, a 29-year-old woman and three men aged 24, 29 and 41.
