NSW Police have admitted they unlawfully arrested former Greens candidate Hannah Thomas during a 2024 pro-Palestine protest in Sydney. The police conceded in court documents that Thomas was subjected to battery, false imprisonment and “harm and damage” and that she is entitled to compensation.
In a defence filed in the NSW Supreme Court responding to Thomas’ civil lawsuit, police concede she was a victim of battery by officers and was “unlawfully imprisoned” after being arrested outside SEC Plating in Belmore on June 27 last year.
The documents say NSW Police accept she is entitled to damages over the arrest and have agreed to pay her “reasonable” medical expenses stemming from the serious eye injury she sustained, which has left her with permanent vision damage and ongoing side effects.
The civil case is running alongside a separate criminal matter against a 33-year-old senior constable charged over the same incident. He is accused of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and an upgraded count of recklessly causing grievous bodily harm, an offence that carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison, and has pleaded not guilty with the matter listed for a hearing next year.
Thomas was one of five people arrested at a protest outside SEC Plating, an electroplating business in Sydney’s south-west that demonstrators alleged supplied components used in jets flown by the Israeli Defence Forces, a claim the company has denied.
During the operation to break up the demonstration, Thomas suffered a serious injury to her right eye and later alleged she was punched in the face by an officer holding a police-issued torch. She was charged in hospital with hindering or resisting police and two counts of failing to comply with a direction to disperse.
Those criminal charges against Thomas and three of the four other protesters were ultimately withdrawn by prosecutors, and she and her co-accused were awarded legal costs of nearly $22,000 and further sums in the Local Court, with Magistrate George Breton describing her costs order as “just and reasonable” given the expenses she incurred defending herself.
Thomas has since launched civil proceedings alleging assault and battery, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, misfeasance in public office and collateral abuse of process, with her statement of claim arguing she has been left with not only significant injuries but an ongoing “distrust and fear” of police.
Court documents and previous reporting reveal Thomas’ lawyers will argue the officer “gratuitously punching” her was “unwarranted, manifestly excessive” and a “grave departure” from his powers as a police officer.
Police, while now conceding liability for battery and unlawful imprisonment and agreeing she is entitled to damages, continue to deny the allegations of malice, misfeasance and that officers deliberately created a “false narrative” around the arrest.
Earlier police documents tendered to the court suggested Thomas’ eye injury was caused by “interference” from other protesters, and Assistant Commissioner Brett McFadden told media after a “preliminary review” of body‑worn camera footage that there was “no information at this stage before me that indicates any misconduct” by officers.
Thomas’ lawyers now allege that a senior officer instructed police at the Belmore protest to show “no tolerance” and issue move-on directions to everyone present, and argue McFadden’s public comments minimised responsibility and contributed to her damages, claims police reject.
Lead image: Getty / Instagram
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