MP Mark Field grabs female protester by throat

[summerofresistance]

I hope she presses charges. Totally unnecessary and unacceptable.

Wouldn't be at all surprised if he has form for DV.

twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1141819192020295680

I'm finding this argument that the woman is blameless and conflating it with domestic abuse really really problematic.

Nobody has said she was blameless, have they? Just that his actions were disproportionate

And the domestic abuse comments seem to occur more often after posters see the picture of him 'welcome' Jeremy Hunt's wife!

Field is no respector of women...

Teachers can use their bodies to block a student. If a teacher used this type of force on a student, including hulking 16 yr olds. They would be getting their P45.

It looks to me like he's going for her throat - what do you see?

The point is that his actions were done from anger, not fear.

I get angry now and then. I don't manhandle other people as a result.

Do you?

It's after that he has his hands on her neck.

He doesn't look very scared does he? Who do you think is most scared in this situation?

Do you think he'd have treated a man like this? I have no proof, but I strongly suspect not.

It's those picturs that bother me most. He is trying to reach her phone, I think. But he doesn't seem bothered by the fact that he has to almost reach down the fronnt of her dress to do so. He doesn' seem to have any of the normal male squeam about grabbing / touching women's breasts.

That lack of 'propriety' is really telling. Anyone who has been the object of a 'touchy' man's unwanted attention knows how that feels, what kind of man that is!

I don’t think he’ll be charged, he could easily of believed an attack was imminent, he didn’t use excessive force. But I agree. He looked pretty vicious, more like a trained body guard

Also, she walked past several people before getting to Field, who was right at the end of the table. None of the others seemed bothered by her, probably thought of her as an irritation more than anything else.

Why did he in particular react in this way?

So what if he's angry? I'd be bloody angry!

Have you thought about anger management classes?

, he could easily of believed an attack was imminent,

You don't get off the hook because of what you might 'of' believed. I might believe the lady in Tesco's is out to get me. Wouldn't give me the right to assault her.

he didn’t use excessive force.

That will be for the police to decide.

Actually that is a defence when being/or not being charged with assault

Those of you who can't see this is excessive are extremely worrying tbh. What other abuses do you normalise?

Thankfully the police are unlikely to agree with you.

Actually that is a defence when being/or not being charged with assault

Yes it is.

Actually that is a defence when being/or not being charged with assault

Simply 'beleiving' someone is a threat does not constitute a defence. If so, anyone could say they 'believed' that someone was a threat and walk out scot free. The defendant has to prove to the authorities that he/she believed there was an imminent threat and acted propotionately. It will be up to the police to decide if that was the case here. You can't just say "Oh I thought she was going to attack me so I can do what I like".

In the context of the clip, it is very likely that he will use that as a defence, i didn’t say I thought it was ok.... I said I don’t think he’ll be charged. I didn’t once suggests you could go around attacking ppl willy nilly. Being quite ridiculous now. I was just giving a fact of law

This article makes some very good points:

"That Mark Field Feared a Terrorist Attack is Clearly a Lie – or He Is Dangerously Insane"

The reason that Mark Field attacked the lady who had just passed by him was that she wore a sash clearly identifying her as a climate change protestor. She had entered with the other guests, already wearing her sash, and making no effort at concealment. Field knew exactly that she was a climate change protestor when he attacked her: it is why he attacked her.

There is zero history in the UK of personal violence or terrorist attack by climate change protestors and nobody could claim they had a reasonable fear that a climate change protestor was carrying a weapon – something which has simply never happened. I could equally rationally grab Mark Field by the throat any time I saw him, and claim he might have been carrying a concealed weapon because he is a Tory MP. His excuse is a complete and utter nonsense, a post hoc effort at justification.

He only had a genuine fear of her carrying a weapon if he is suffering from a serious psychological derangement, and one dangerous to the public. [...]

Nobody stood up to try to assist the peaceful woman who had been grabbed by the neck. Sickeningly, they applauded Field on his return. I find the extraordinary tirade of Tory defence on twitter this morning says a great deal about the kind of party it has become.

One point that appears to have been missed in media comment, is that it seems to me extremely likely that the woman had an invitation or ticket for the event. She was dressed in evening wear as the other guests, but was not attempting to infiltrate or gatecrash or she would not have worn the sash. The most probable reason for someone to follow the dress code but identify themselves with a protest sash is that they were a legitimate guest wishing to make a point.

It is essential to our society that Mark Field is immediately arrested and charged with assault. If Tories are allowed simply to assault people lest they make a speech that Tories disagree with, society has turned a corner to somewhere very dark indeed.

, i didn’t say I thought it was ok...

In fairness, you gave a good impression of doing just that:

he could easily of believed an attack was imminent, he didn’t use excessive force

There was a male MP stabbed by a female some years ago.

I don't like Field and think he is a thug, but given that the lady was trying to access the speaker on the podium, and no-one knew if she was armed, then I think his response is heavy handed but understandable.

If he has lain his hands on women before then that is appalling, but it doesn't mean that what he did will be classed as assault by the police.

There is lots of looking at the situation with the benefit of hindsight on this thread. At the time, the people present may have been scared and angry. Trespassing and trying to get to someone is not "peaceful protest".

It has everything to do with what Field believed to be the case at the time. If he knew FOR SURE that she was unarmed then he could be seen to be disproportionate. But given that most men don't manhandle women on a regular basis, it doesn't surprise me that he overestimated the amount of force necessary.

The man is an arsehole anyway, but I think to equate subduing and removing a protester (who may have been an armed terrorist for all those present knew) with domestic violence is really unfair.

Followed by he looked vicious, more like a bodyguard

I think they’re both in the wrong.

Is this along the lines of “ooh, I could see some of her boobs, therefore she CLEARLY wanted me to drag her down and alleyway and have sex with her violently”?

Have to say I've been really disturbed by the increasing tendency, on TV, to show or view women having their neck's constricted/being choked/syrangled.

In one recent episode of Killing Eve, Villanelle three times was choked for, what seemed like, a gratuitously long period of time, by three separate men. I know she is supposed to be a psychopathic serial killer herself, but that particular episode did seem unnecessarily gratuitous.

Then in Gentleman Jack, the main character, Anne Lister was choked by a man.

Then in recent episodes ofInspector Montalbano - the painfully long focus on women being choked and strangled ( along with references to to current fashions in sex 'play' or words to that effect.

All of this is on fairly prime time, main stream TV.

I really do despair at the way the world is going - on so many fronts. Such degradation and regression everywhere.

This thread is a good reminder to feminists that there are always people, including women, willing to find any and every excuse for a man to use violence against women, or anyone society deems inferior and deserving of abuse- like protestors. My mother was racially abused by a group of white women when we were peacefully protesting once. I was young but it was an important lesson to me.

The likelihood of her or anyone in there having a gun is slim to none. This isn’t America.

The likelihood of a small woman attacking a politician, also slim to none.

The fact she was attempting to walk past him, as she had already done to several other politicians without incident, is reason enough to condemn his actions. She was not going for him, it cannot be self defence.

What we are seeing on this thread is exactly what every women who is a victim of male violence gets if she speaks out. Remember the recent case of a woman who filmed her rape only for him to get off? They will always question you. There will always be excuses. Even if they see it with their own eyes.

Yes Justhadathought, my home country NZ had recently introduced new specific domestic violence laws around strangulation, as it’s the most popular form of violence against women. I believe it’s also the number 1 method used to kill female partners in the UK? The fact he did that, as a first instinct, is very triggering for those of us with first hand experience.

That's horrifying to watch. That woman was powerless to get away from him, and she really tried. The look in his eyes and the way he handled her says to me that he's done that before. And everyone just watched it happen, not a single person helped her

Yes, he's done that before...... & not one other person was on their feet, except for one female guest who was clearly distressed by what she witnessed.

One woman, who was sat very close to him at the table - even looked the other way at one point. Chilling!