To think that the woman who got hit by a policeman at the G20 protests shouldn't now be making money out of it...

[Pheebe]

Heard her say on the news this morning that she thinks the policeman should have asked her politely to move away!!! She was screaming at him like a hariden, wouldn't back off when he asked and signalled her to, he's in the middle of a braying mob and he should ahve asked her politely!!!

O and wasn't it lucky all the cameras were on hand to capture the moment and pass it on to the press.

I don't condone violence of any sort and agree the police need to uphold the highest standards but I'd be more convinced about her sincerity if she'd said any money she makes was going to Ian Tomlinsons family...after all she claims to have been there for a 'peaceful vigil' following his death.

Right, rant over, off to play in the garden with ds for a bit...

oh sod it - I've got a huge pile of ironing toda before I hit the garden again.......

"It does sadden me beanie that you cannot see anything at all wrong in this womans behavior and are laying the entire blame at the feet of this PC"

as I said earlier... I had a slightly different point of view last night (And posted it on another thread) where I thought it was wrong for the woman to be shouting scum. However, having seen the whole video and her shouts put into context I have changed my view.

I don't think anything you have said on this thread would make me change my view back. Sorry

Even with the shouting from her, and her comments on TV, and her involvement with Max Clifford I STILL think the policeman was clearly out of order, his actions were far to aggressive given the context of the whole thing and so I don't feel the slightest bit bad about blaming the PC for his outrageous and unprofessional behaviour towards this person.

actually before I go (for now) beanie do you accept that she did approach him before he hit her in the face??

sorry, 'far too'. apologies for the lack of punctuation in that last post

I dont think the behaviour of the woman in question is the central issue here. Yes she was being boorish, but she was a demonstrator, holding vigil or whatever, but she was riled (that does not excuse her actions, thennor now) and responded in a predictable way. That behaviour goes with the territory and the police should have managed their own response far better. I dont buy this crap about 'provocation' as though it somehow justifies the police actions. So the same officer who gave that woman a back-handed slap across her face could potentially arrest the same woman's husband/boyfriend/partner if he was to do the very same? How far would claims of provocation hold then?

When the police resort to using overt force, as was the case with this woman, the legitimacy of their actions is rightly called in to question. More fool the police for feeding protesters the ammunition to sell their stories - particularly because in doing so they undermine their own credibility and that of their profession.

because as far as I can make out from the video (having watched that section several times over) she both moves towards him and says something

yet here claims she neither approached him or spoken to him.

Fair enough beanie - no need to feel bad about it (sure you don't really ). I'm more interested in the discussion and seeing other peeps pov than trying to change their mind (or even prove my way is the right way)

I'm off to an 8th bday party now with a horde of under 3s to control...wish me luck...

yes - I always said she approached him because he pushed someone off camera. As the camera pans round he has pushed in her direction and is turned and pushing the off camera parson. She is shouting at that point. that's what I see. She is shouting because he has pushed towards her (not caught on camera so I can't say what happened) and continues shouting as he pushes the off camera section. If it were me I think I would be shouting too.

Up until just before that point it is a very quiet protest/vigil. It only really starts to kick off when the policemwen become aggressive with the man who was talking to the police woman. Maybe the buck stops with them reall?

and good luck Pheebe

you see this is where my problem lies with this particular G20 story - because you and I both agree that she approached him before he aggressively hit in the face (I don't dispute that he did it and it was bloody awful). Yet on the clip on the BBC she states quite catergorically that she hadn't approached him..........and I'm afraid I find it very hard to find a lot of sympathy for people who don't tell the truth

yeah - I have said right from the begining but perhaps not in this thread that I don't like the way she's going about it. Same as that video with the person asking for the policeman's number just to make a point. That policeman didn't react aggressively though.

I think there are good and bad policemen and I suppose I just think that finding out if you can follow proper procedure or not is best done in the training process rather than at a vigil for a dead man who may have been killed by a colleague.

Regardless of rights and wrongs I guess there will now be a criminal investigation and she should not be permitted to go telling the world every minute detail of the incident.
It prejudices the public's pov.

It could prevent there being a fair hearing and trial.

It could end up ballsing everything up for her even though that wasn't her intention.

Just beacuse she is the presumed innocent one in all this doesn't mean she has absolute free reign to do and say exactly what she likes.

If the situation was reversed and the officer went public there would be outrage, the likes of Liberty would be spouting about lack of impartiality etc..
Guilty or not he deserves the right to a fair hearing.

FAQinglovely it is wholly possible that she is telling the truth. Here is a chain of events which agrees with the both footage and the woman's account:

1. First act of aggression - police pushes woman off camera (no previous contact between them)

1. Woman (by her own admission in interview) pushes police back

1. Woman shouts at police "you hit a woman" (meaning herself) and "scum"

1. Police slaps woman in the face

1. Police hits woman with baton.

The thing is yes she approached him before he hit her, but quite possibly not before the first act of aggression - him pushing her.

What I see is a small woman reacting with surprise and anger to a large man being aggressive to her, and him hitting her in the face, and then again with a baton.

The problem is that things happen off camera which we don't see. It starts with what is quite possibly a woman responding to being treated with aggression for no apparent reason. (Simply being at a protest shouldn't be a good enough reason to be at the receiving end of aggression from the police.)

What difference should it make if Max Clifford is involved? I don't like the man, but his involvement doesn't in any way affect the fact that this policeman acted in an aggressive and unprofessional manner, and his actions should be scrutinised. If this is how he acts when there are cameras there, what does he do when they're not?

no she says

"he struck me for no reason, I hadn't approached him, spoken to him or anything"

has the "woman" who was pushed (off camera) actually come forward and said there was no previous contact or anything? If you listen carefully before the camera pans round you can already hear the policeman saying "move back" before the clearly audible one where he pushes the woman(?)

sounds like she is making a fair bit out of this

I thought on the radio earlier this morning she admitted hitting the police officer. I also thought it said she admitted hitting him first but I'm not sure of that at all.

Just looked at 2 shoes link

"I looked like I had been whipped by the Taliban" [snort] FGS, what a daft thing to say.

and how can she suddenly have noticed a line of officers had appeared in front of her? The events in the video leading up to the actual incident involving her clearly show a police presence that hadn't "just appeared" (unless they have magical invisible jackets amongst the police equipment these days and they'd just taken them off ) - she must have been standing close to the front of the crowd to have seen the policeman push the woman(?) back and heard them saying move back before she approached him in the first place?

I agree with MrsJames. I haven't studied all the footage but when I saw the news item this morning I must admit my first thought was that she CHOSE to get involved in a heated protest, where as the PC had no such choice to be there.

And that whilst I respect people's rights to protest, and peaceful protestors should certainly not be treated violently, such incidents surely come with the territory....If you put yourself in a position where there is aggressive jostling and shouting at the police......you can't be TOO shocked and aggrieved if you end up getting hurt.

"I looked like I had been whipped by the Taliban"

I wonder whether that analogy was deliberately used doubt that it just suddenly came to mind.

The fact that Clifford is involved does matter because he creates an even bigger media spin, encourages the public to take sides and makes a very healthy profit form all the front page spreads.

I think she has made herself look foolish by allowing herself to be orchestrated by Clifford et al and does her cause no good at all.

If she has a complaint , fine, go along with the IPCC investigation but she shouldn't be shouting from the rooftops. The outcome should be no different for her or the officer if facts are proven regardless of the attention from the media so why go along with all the hype? unless there are other reasons unrelated to the incident?

I'll tell you what I want to know is...........what happened to the bloke from the start of the clip who we last see having a tussle with the coppers???????

I am genuinely shocked by the number of posters who think that if you have the brass neck to exercise your democractic right to NON-VIOLENT protest, you can't complain about being on the receiving end of police brutality.

This is a really extraordinary confusion between the relative positions of citizens and the police in society. The police must be held to a higher standard, because they are the ones operating from inside the justice system. They are the ones with truncheons and tasers and cuffs and the power of arrest and the ear of the prosecuting authorities.

I guess the fact that so many of you do think like this explains a lot about the things the police have got away with over the years.

In fact, it probably answer's ruty's question: Who is responsible for allowing police to act like this?

The public is.

Answering the OP only as I should be outside weedin' and plantin'- if this is the only way that is effective in getting the police to face up to the fact that they have some seriously shite officers/ units, then good for her. There is no reason for armed officers to go around clobbering unarmed and defenceless people who are exercising their right to peaceful protest. Good god, do we really believe in sitting at home paying our taxes and taking whatever sh1t the government we pay for decides to serve up next?

My one big regret in life is not having taken part in any demos as a student- I didn't even go to protest against the poll tax with my fellow students because I couldn't afford the train fare down to London. So glad we went to the anti war demo in Feb 2001 (?) and hope it shocked the gvt out of complacency to see how many "middle England" people turned up.