An account of what happened by someone who was there. Sorry, no link - sent to me by a friend who knows the person. Also see video below. R
"I attended a planned peaceful protest yesterday in Newcastle. Within minutes of us meeting in the city centre where everyone was hugging and chatting and waiting to start a walk through the city, we were surrounded by hundreds of police, some on horseback. They kettled us in, pushing us closer and closer together and shouting for us to move behind the civic centre (we had met at the front). They moved us with their batons out. I was very scared and in a bit of chaos I escaped with two blokes I know from the stand in the park and we watched from the sidelines. The police then sent in another set of police with dogs. And then more and more police arrived in vans and lined the streets around us. By this time the crowd (which was relatively small anyway was dispersing and splitting and many like me had got out). This left a core group who were still remaining calm and asking the police to let them through. What happened afterwards was horrific. One man was set upon by the police and bashed to the ground. He is known to us and a very peaceful man who did nothing at all other than be there. They had him pinned to the ground and THEN set a dog on him who mauled him. There was blood everywhere. Families with children had to escape into a pizza shop and the staff got the children out by their back door. Then they sent a helicopter over. My friend’s teenage daughter was hit repeatedly by a baton for standing there too. It took another police officer to stop the officer hitting her.
If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I would not have believed it. Everyone is completely shocked. The police set out from the beginning to intimidate and incite violence and all credit to the protesters who remained peaceful throughout. The police were violent thugs. I don’t know who they were but none of them had numbers on.
When I finally left there was one woman still standing outside the civic centre holding a tiny cardboard sign saying ‘leave our kids alone’ with a picture of a needle. She was stood staring at the line of police officers with tears rolling down her face. I went to give her a hug and tried to persuade her to come away with us but she said she would stay and look all the officers in the eye and try and appeal to their humanity. I will never get the image of her out of my mind. Set against the brutality of the police line with their shields and batons.
I don’t know why they were so determined to stop us marching. Rumour is because people are starting to wake up now the truth is out about the local radio presenter dying from the vaccine. Who knows. But I do know this battle is turning nasty now and there will be a lot of Geordies on the war path today. I don’t know how the man is who was attacked. He was in hospital last night but they wouldn’t let his partner in to see him.
Not sure where we go from here but protesting is only going to work if we have bigger numbers"