Doctor ‘Strangled’ by Police Officer Until She Passed Out at Hunger Strike Protest

A police officer at a protest for the Palestine Action hunger strikers strangled a doctor until she passed out by dragging her by the back of her hoodie, the doctor has told Novara Media.

Dr Olivia Brandon was among several medical professionals who gathered with other supporters outside HMP Bronzefield on Wednesday 17 December to demand the prison allow in an ambulance to treat a hunger striker suffering from severe chest pains.

The alleged attack came after police arrested two protesters, including psychiatric doctor Dr Ayo Moiett, who protesters say was targeted both because he is black and because he played a pivotal role in forcing the prison to eventually let the ambulance come.  

Brandon, who works in the A&E department at a London hospital, said she and other protesters sat in the road to prevent police vans from leaving with the detainees – after which officers “started assaulting everyone” as they cleared the road.

She felt an officer grab her hoodie from behind and then drag her along the road.

“I was wearing a tight jumper under my hoodie and because of the force the officer was using, this was strangling me. I remember retching and being in a lot of pain,” she said.

In video footage of the incident, Brandon can be heard choking as she raises a hand to her throat.  

“I was panicking and thought I was going to die. I could hear people screaming at the police that they were strangling me, but the officer wasn’t stopping. I stopped being able to see and then I passed out,” she said.  

Brandon said she fell unconscious for what she estimates was several seconds as the strangulation cut off the flow of blood to her brain. “I felt confused and disoriented for around 10 minutes afterwards, and was still in a lot of pain.”

Brandon initially thought she didn’t need medical attention, but when she experienced increasing pain her sisters drove her to the A&E department at Homerton University Hospital in London.

Staff there told her she needed a CT scan of the blood vessels in her head and neck, she said, “as strangulation causing rapid unconsciousness is due to compression of the carotid arteries to the brain. This can cause damage to the arteries, leading to later complications such as stroke.”

She was discharged early the following morning after the scan found there had been no lasting injuries. She is considering legal action against Surrey Police and is trying to obtain the officer’s bodycam footage, she said.

​A spokesperson for Surrey Police told Novara Media: “Although we have not received a complaint directly, we have referred this matter to the Independent Office for Police Conduct for their review.”

James Smith, an A&E doctor who also attended Wednesday’s protest, told Novara Media that he was sitting next to Brandon holding the straps of her backpack when the officer grabbed her, at which point a second officer also started dragging him.

​“I heard my clothes tear, and my glasses were knocked off,” he said. “We were both being dragged backwards on our backs on the tarmac.”

He added that the heavy police presence at the protest was “obscene”, given that “we were only there trying to advocate for a single ambulance”.

​Surrey Police said in a statement that officers arrested three people at the demonstration: a 29-year-old man who they accuse of assault causing grievous bodily harm, a 28-year-old man they accuse of assault, and a 22-year-old woman they accuse of criminal damage.

Footage shows a man walking with the help of a crutch, trying to get past a line of police to reach Moiett following his arrest. Officers then pull him away, at which point one of the officers appears to lose her balance and fall over.  

​Protesters told Novara Media that it was the man with the crutch who was later arrested and accused of grievous bodily harm, and that it was the incident in this video that police are using as the basis of their claim against him.

​Three Palestine Action-linked prisoners who have been refusing food are being held at HMP Bronzefield. They include Qesser Zuhrah, 20, who has not eaten since 2 November and who friends and supporters say has been the victim of medical neglect by the prison.

The prison denied multiple requests from loved ones to send Zuhrah to hospital after she developed severe pain in her chest that spread to her neck and found herself unable to walk or stand up.

​Wednesday’s protest began after independent MP Zarah Sultana arrived at HMP Bronzefield in the early hours of the morning and posted on Instagram that she would not leave until the prison allowed in an ambulance to treat Zuhrah, which it eventually did 12 hours later.

​Sultana later said the state would have let Zuhrah die if it hadn’t been for the efforts of the protesters.

Before her alleged assault, Brandon told prison staff that their conduct towards Zuhrah was unlawful. “You will all be seen in court one day,” she said. “Severe chest pain gets a hospital transfer… if I made the decisions you are making in my hospital, I would be fired and I would be prosecuted and I would go to jail.”

​Six remand prisoners are still on hunger strike across several UK prisons, while two have recently ended their strike. They are accused of involvement in break-ins and criminal damage at either an Israeli-owned weapons factory or an RAF base, actions both aimed at disrupting material support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

The hunger strikers are demanding a fair trial, an end to censorship of their communications and immediate bail, having been held for well over the usual six-month limit as they await their trials.

They are also calling for the decision to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation to be reversed and for the UK premises of Israeli weapons firm Elbit Systems to be shut down.