Nine women are bringing a legal claim against the Metropolitan Police after they were arrested while attending an animal campaigning seminar miles away from the King’s Coronation.
The group say they were at a well-publicised training day organised by Animal Rising when police entered the building, searched them, arrested them and detained them for more than nine hours. They were arrested on suspicion of conspiring to cause a public nuisance at the Coronation, which had already begun around six miles away.
The women say they were handcuffed, taken to police stations, subjected to full-body searches and held before being released at night without their phones. Five months later, the Metropolitan Police confirmed that no further action would be taken because there was insufficient evidence to charge them.
The group say the experience has left many of them dealing with anxiety, panic attacks, paranoia, depression and fear of the police.
They believe their arrests were part of a wider pattern of pre-emptive policing at the Coronation, where journalists, republican campaigners, environmental protestors and others were also arrested before any alleged disruption had taken place.
The women are now bringing a legal claim to challenge what they say was an unlawful tactic of pre-emptive arrest and to hold the Metropolitan Police to account.
They need to raise £20,000 to progress the case, with Hodge Jones & Allen LLP and barrister Darryl Hutcheon of Matrix Chambers acting for them.
Support the legal claim against the Met Police
