I was arrested under Suella Braverman's illegal protest crackdown - now Labour has a duty to put it right

17 June 2025, 08:00

Earlier this year I found out first-hand what it’s like to become a victim of one of the Government’s dangerous – and we now know, unlawful – protest restrictions.

In January, I attended a vigil for Palestine in Trafalgar Square with two friends. We listened to some of the speeches before leaving to get lunch in a local cafe. After we'd eaten we decided to go to the shops to buy jeans but by this point we found Trafalgar Square was now blocked by a line of police. Trying to find our way, we asked officers if it was closed, and one ushered us through a gap in the line. "You can get through there, ladies", he said.

What happened next has left me wondering how I'll ever feel safe again.

Almost as soon as we entered the square, I was separated from my friends and became caught in a circle of police, closing in on everyone in the area. I tried to explain there had been a mistake, that I wasn't protesting, but they wouldn't listen. Ten minutes later, I was arrested and held in custody on a bus along with many of the people who'd attended the vigil.

It felt terrifying and out of control. I was on the bus for almost four hours – without access to water - before being taken to a police cell and held overnight. It wasn't until 10pm that I was even allowed to call my family, as my child was home alone, and tell them I wouldn't be coming home that evening.

I wasn't bailed until after 4pm the next day, half an hour shy of the maximum 24-hour custody period – and for apparently being at a protest that I'd left hours earlier. Close to a month later, I received a letter saying there would be no further action. I naively thought there would be some apology to acknowledge what I had been through, but there was nothing.

The effect this has had on my mental health has been huge. I'm scared almost all the time. My legs often tremble uncontrollably without reason. I worry about my family's safety constantly - I have no optimism. But what has really broken me is knowing that I did nothing wrong. What happened was so unfair and shocking, I can't compute how I'll ever feel safe again. Even as I write this piece, I've felt afraid.

I was just one of dozens of people who were arrested that day under police powers which were in force for two years before judges repeatedly ruled they were unlawful and they became void. I dread to think how many people at how many protests had similar experiences to mine during that time.

While Suella Braverman was Home Secretary, she changed the law by the back door to lower the threshold for police intervention at protests or public gatherings from 'serious disruption' to 'more than minor disruption'.

The human rights group Liberty took her to court, arguing she'd done it unlawfully – and thankfully they won. Today, this law is finally void, and no one else needs to experience what I did, and what I still am.

I want to sit down with those in power who made and defended these laws and explain the damage they have done to my mental health and that of many others arrested under these laws. Nothing will ever take away my experiences or the experiences of people like me who were also arrested under unlawful powers. But we deserve some form of justice.

That's why all arrests and convictions made under these laws, which should never have existed, must be urgently reviewed.

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London mum Susan (*name changed) was arrested in January after attending a Palestine demonstration on Whitehall.

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