NSW Police Declares a Critical Incident, After Officers Viciously Assault Hannah Thomas

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Hannah Thomas

The public backlash over the vicious assault by New South Wales police officers of former Greens candidate for Grayndler Hannah Thomas has been fierce. The attack, that’s left the lawyer with serious facial injuries, occurred early on Friday, 27 June 2025.

NSW police then used its tried-and-true tactic of charging Thomas with criminal offences post-assault.

In her case, she’s was charged over the weekend with resisting arrest and failing to comply with a move on direction, prior to enough outcry and evidence finally resulting in a critical incident being declared late on Monday, 30 June.

Thomas had been acting as a legal observer at an early morning peaceful pro-Palestinian protest at around 6 am on 27 June 2025 at the premises of SEC Plating on Bidjigal land in Belmore, which was demonstrating against the Australian electroplating company that produces some products involved in the supply chain to make the F-35 fighter jets that Israel’s been using in the Gaza genocide.

Footage supplied by Weapons Out the West and viewed by Sydney Criminal Lawyers appears to show several NSW police officers grabbing Thomas and wrestling with her and as the antiwar group described, then dragging her along the concrete, causing her facial injuries.

Apparently, officers decided Hannah needed a roughing up to point of hospitalisation because she questioned the legal basis of two move-on orders that officers had just issued.

The distressing images of Thomas’ injuries, which have seen one eye damaged to the point that she may lose sight in it, have gone viral. And after pressing charges against its victim, NSW police had a change of heart late on Monday, after Thomas’ lawyer provided enough medical evidence to see the incident during the “unauthorised protest” deemed critical and NSW police will be investigating it.

But as NSW Greens MLC Sue Higginson made clear after the critical incident was called, police investigating police is not good enough, and the NSW police watchdog should solely be charged with the investigation, and she’s also drawn a link between NSW premier Chris Minns’ crackdown on freedom of political expression and the right to protest with empowering of state violence.

Lawyer Hannah Thomas, on the left campaigning in the recent federal election and on the right, speaking from her hospital bed on Sunday night after being assault by NSW police
Lawyer Hannah Thomas, on the left campaigning in the recent federal election and on the right, speaking from her hospital bed on Sunday night after being assault by NSW police

No justification needed to attack

“I welcome the declaration that the police assault of Hannah Thomas has been declared a critical incident and that the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC) has now also declared that it will be overseeing that investigation,” said Higginson late on Monday afternoon. “This cannot just be left as police investigating police.”

“We have maintained from the outset that the LECC must undertake its own independent investigation into all of the circumstances that led to the assault and injury, and they should be tasked with looking at what happened in the context of the Minns Labor government’s intolerance to protest in NSW and how that has likely emboldened police.”

Prior to the declaration, Higginson had written to both the NSW premier and NSW police minister Yasmin Catley, outlining that there was more than enough evidence in the public domain confirming that “police have acted beyond the scope of their legal powers”. The Greens MLC added that what occurred was “not policing”, but it was rather “punishment”.

Thomas was not the only civilian assaulted, as the cops laid into a number of protesters. The former Greens candidate and lawyer, however, was “brutally assaulted”, it would seem, because she questioned whether the officers issuing move on orders to the peaceful protesters had the power to, under section 197 of the Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2002 (NSW) (the LEPRA), as there was no reason for them to move.

“It concerns me deeply that the police in announcing the critical incident have referred to the protest at Belmore as ‘unauthorised’,” Higginson underscored. “This is another falsehood that is created by the current regime of intolerance by premier Minns and the police. It’s important to remember people do not need authorisation to hold a protest.”

State emboldens police to brutalise

“I was engaged in peaceful protest, and my interactions with NSW police have left me potentially without vision in my right eye permanently,” Thomas said from her hospital bed in Bankstown on Sunday. “I look like this now because of Chris Minns and Yasmin Catley and their draconian antiprotest laws, and their attempts to demonise protesters, especially protesters for Palestine.”

“They’ve emboldened police to crack down with extreme violence and brutality, and they were warned that those laws would lead to this outcome,” the lawyer made certain.

After injuring Hannah to the point that she might lose vision in one eye, NSW police officers would not let protest medics near her, despite her serious injuries. Indeed, they made her stand alone, while waiting for an ambulance to arrive.

Concerned protesters were also captured on footage asking police officers to identify themselves, as they’re legally required to, yet they just outright refused.

Not having felt that it’s officers had punished Thomas enough by brutalising her at the scene of the police crime just for having suggested that their understanding of the law was a bit off, NSW police went on to charge the lawyer over the weekend with hindering or resisting a police officer and refusing to comply with a direction to disperse.

“I just want to finish by saying what I have gone through is obviously nothing compared to what people in Gaza are going through because of Israel,” Thomas continued from her hospital bed, and she added that Palestinians in Gaza are currently having to choose between starving to death or lining up to secure food from a genocidal US-Israeli aid distribution agency and getting shot dead.

Successfully eroding civil liberties

“We must always be critical when people are injured at the hands of the police. In this case, we should be alarmed at the excessive use of force,” said NSW Council for Civil Liberties president Timothy Roberts on Monday. “The NSWCCL joins calls for an independent investigation into the police’s conduct.”

“In our democracy we have a right to assemble. We have the right to communicate political ideas,” the lawyer added. “The Minns government has damaged our democracy by undermining these rights.”

The NSWCCL further outlines that public assemblies are protected under NSW law, whether they have been authorised, via a mechanism known as the Form 1 process, or regardless of whether they have sought such authorisation from the NSW Police Force. But the Minns government has recently lowered the threshold on this protection by providing police with a new move on power.

Passed on 21 June, the Crimes Amendment (Places of Worship) Bill 2025, amended section 200 of the LEPRA, so that NSW police can issue a move on order to a “demonstration, protest, procession or assembly”, if it has not been authorised by the Form 1 process, and it is simply “near a place of worship”.

Since Friday, the NSWCCL continues, it has been reported that a fact sheet relating to the arrest of another peaceful protester included a reference to the new places of worship move on power.

A NSW Supreme Court challenge of this new places of worship law has just been heard, and the ruling is now being awaited. Critics of the law point out the ridiculousness of being able to move on people for simply being near a place of worship, because “near” is left undefined in the legislation, so police officers are now left with a wide berth to assess at their own discretion what “near” means.

The point has been repeatedly made that this new move on law can be used to basically shutdown unwanted protests on Gadigal land across the entire city of Sydney, and now it has been shown that it can apply on Bidjigal land too in much the same manner. A quick search of Google Maps reveals there is a mosque near by SEC Plating, however the peaceful protest was in no way hindering that.

“The Minns government faced ample criticism that these laws not only empowered NSW police improperly, but that they gave NSW police the discretion about when they can use their powers,” Roberts continued, adding that not only did police break a peaceful rally on “first apparent use of these powers at this protest” but a civilian has reportedly been “seriously injured at their hands”.

“The antiprotest laws must be repealed, and the Minn’s government should be condemned for any part they have played in this by ramping up their hateful rhetoric toward protesters, and emboldening NSW police to act as reported,” the civil liberties expert said in conclusion.

Main image: NSW police officers taking hold of lawyer Hannah Thomas, as they were about to assault her. Taken from footage supplied by Weapons Out the West

Paul Gregoire

Paul Gregoire is a Sydney-based journalist and writer. He's the winner of the 2021 NSW Council for Civil Liberties Award For Excellence In Civil Liberties Journalism. Prior to Sydney Criminal Lawyers®, Paul wrote for VICE and was the news editor at Sydney’s City Hub.

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