A 71-year-old legal observer has accused a group of police officers of deliberately knocking her over and leaving her bloodied and unconscious on the ground during a Gaza ceasefire protest in London.
Lesley Wertheimer, who was wearing a hi-vis bib with “legal observer” on the back – fell face down when about 30 police officers ran towards Westminster Bridge during the first pro-Palestine demonstration of 2024.
“No person should be charged, knocked over and harmed by the police and then have to rely on strangers helping them,” said Wertheimer, who has been monitoring the policing of protests since 1990. “Legal observers are there to do a piece of work as the police are there to do a piece of work. The police have no right to try to intimidate us.”
Video footage shared with the Observer shows officers running towards Westminster Bridge on 6 January. At least two male officers appear to knock into Wertheimer as they pass, apparently causing her to fall face-first into the road. No officer stops to check if she is injured, even though at least two of them look down at her lying prone and motionless.
Wertheimer says she has no memory of the fall and believes she lost consciousness. She was eventually helped by passersby. Doctors at the protest, which was organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, cleaned blood from her face and examined a cut in her mouth. She then limped, with the help of another observer, to hospital, where gravel was removed from her cheek and her sprained knee was X-rayed. “If I had done that to a police officer I would have been in court the next day,” she said. “They cannot go on treating the public like this.”
Wertheimer complained to the Metropolitan police, which said it was investigating. Supt Gerry Parker, one of those responsible for policing protest in London, said: “Anyone who sees this footage will be understandably alarmed. We are urgently working to establish what happened. We’re aware the woman sadly suffered injuries.”
Wertheimer’s lawyer, Eva Roszykiewicz, said the case was particularly shocking. “It is not only that officers knocked into Lesley, causing her to fall over, but that none of the others stopped to check on her,” she said. “Whether you are a legal observer or a member of the public, that is scary.”
Legal observers are trained volunteers who monitor protests and provide basic legal advice to protesters. While they have no special status, the Met acknowledged in 2021 that they had an important role to play in the independent scrutiny of policing.
Wertheimer believes she may have been targeted because she was recording police actions at the protest, during which officers prevented hundreds of pro-Palestine protesters from crossing Westminster Bridge. “There was nobody else there [in the street when it happened]. You couldn’t miss me,” she said. “The first two rows [of officers] ran past me. The third and fourth rows knocked me over. They could have followed the rows in front but they chose not to.”
Despite three decades of experience monitoring protests, she is now too frightened to work by herself. “I have not been able to go out on my own since [the incident] because if something happened to me like this, who would be there to help me?”
Campaign group Netpol, which monitors policing, told the Observer that assaults on legal observers appeared to be on the rise. “We are seeing more and more police aggression towards legal observers. It is being driven by the growing hostility towards protest from the police and the Conservative government,” said Kat Hobbs from Netpol.
Last month, two legal observers said they had been assaulted while monitoring the policing of an antifascist protest at the University of Manchester. One claimed he had fallen to the ground after being struck on the back by a baton. When he got up, he claimed he had then been thrown back to the ground by officers. The other observer claimed she had been pushed backwards and struck twice by officers. The alleged assault left her with bruising on her face and a suspected perforated eardrum. Both are preparing to make formal complaints to Greater Manchester police (GMP). A GMP spokesperson said: “Any allegations of assault by police are concerning and should be reported so that they can be assessed to ensure appropriate action is taken.”
Last week, Rishi Sunak claimed the country was descending “into mob rule” and asked police to halt protests outside parliament, town halls, MPs’ homes and political offices.
On Saturday, hundreds gathered outside Barclays’ Tottenham Court Road branch, calling for a boycott of the bank said to be linked to arms sales in Israel. Protestors criticised Sunak’s speech, in which he said democracy was being targeted by “extremists”.
Pat Mary, a former teacher, said she’d come because she was “disgusted” by Sunak’s comments. “When I heard the speech, I looked online to see if there was a demonstration because, even by what I consider his incredibly low standards of integrity, that speech was beyond the pale.
“It was honestly one of the most horrible speeches I can remember. I can remember Enoch Powell’s 1968 speech … there were echoes of that.”
