This video was shot yesterday at the Barton Moss anti-fracking protest camp and uploaded to YouTube by Jason Smalley. It shows a horrendously violent arrest of a woman that ends with her having a seizure. The police are supposed to be public servants not agents of corporations. Whatever anyone thinks of the pros and cons of fracking, policing like this is not on. It’s like the 1984 Miners Strike all over again.

For a full report of yesterday’s violent policing by the  Greater Manchester Police and its Tactical Action Unit, see the Salford Star, here.

The Salford Star reports that the Barton Moss Camp’s lead solicitor, Simon Pook of Robert Lizar Solicitors, who is also a legal observer, said:

“…Greater Manchester Police appear to have discarded the European Convention of Human Rights into the gutter, and replaced it with political policing, re-enforced with overt aggression…I am firmly of the view that what took place today appears to be political policing in favour of a corporate agenda…”

Mr Pook intends to update the United Nations Special Rapporteur of Peaceful Protest with a full report on Barton Moss and the GMP conduct.