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The Canberra Times
The Canberra Times
National
Toby Vue

'It's disgusting': Anti-vax protester accuses police of choking him

Protester Kane O'Brien outside the ACT courts building in April. Picture: Lanie Tindale

A protester against vaccination has described police action towards him as "disgusting", accusing them of choking him before charging him with a "bullshit trespass charge again".

Kane Alexander O'Brien appeared via audio-visual link from a witness room in the ACT Magistrates Court on Monday when he was charged with a fresh count of trespassing on Commonwealth premises.

The court heard this related to him allegedly trespassing on the parliamentary precincts on June 12.

Magistrate Beth Campbell asked him twice to confirm his name and identity to which he responded with "I'm a living man, all rights reserved".

"I'm a living man ... do you agree that I'm living?"

In reply, Ms Campbell said "that's a stupid question".

"I'm not going to waste my time on that," she said.

O'Brien, who chose not to sit down and represented himself, said he was in a protest-allowed area and "the cops have come up and choked me and then arrested me".

"It's so frustrating because I spent the night in jail when I'm the one who got choked, assaulted," he alleged.

O'Brien said police could not answer him about why he was being arrested "so they came up with this bullshit trespass charge again".

"You've got to see the tricks they're playing," he said.

The defendant, who has not pleaded to the charge, also accused of police of potentially lying in their alleged facts and he took aim at the judicial system.

"It's disgusting what's going on and every part of this system is playing into it," O'Brien said.

"You can't keep doing this. I'm sorry but I'm sick of it."

He was already facing a number of counts for the same charge and had November 4 scheduled for a hearing in relation to those charges.

O'Brien was released on bail, which was unopposed by the prosecution, and had his latest charge also scheduled for the November hearing.

In April, he had similar charges dropped.

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