Journalist hits out at police after being detained at WestConnex protest

Saturday, 22 Oct 2016 13:55:18 | Raveen Hunjan And Antoinette Lattouf

Wendy Bacon was arrested on Friday October 21, 2016, at a WestConnex protest. (Facebook: WestConnex Action Group)

Activist and journalist Wendy Bacon says she intends to fight police charges after being arrested alongside two others at a WestConnex protest on Friday.

About 30 people joined Ms Bacon to protest drilling on Holmwood Street at Newtown as part of Sydney's $16.8 billion WestConnex motorway project.

Ms Bacon said the group were occupying a space on the street when staff from the contracted construction company asked them to move on and called police.

"Very quickly, the riot police were on the site and after one person was grabbed off the ground and then they grabbed me and bent my wrist back," she said.

"That's pretty rough treatment.

Warning: Offensive language in video below

External Link: Westconnex protesters arrested in Newtown

"I wasn't told 'you're under arrest' or anything like that — no words, nothing.

"If they treat me like that — a nearly 70-year-old woman — it really worries me to think what is happening to young people and others who are subject to police treatment."

About 10 officers, including the Riot Squad, were on the scene and proceeded to arrest Ms Bacon and two others — a man and a woman both aged 39.

The protestors claimed the construction workers caged them in by building a fence around them, though the space they were occupying was not initially enclosed.

The arrested trio were later charged with remaining on enclosed land without lawful excuse, while the 39-year-old woman was also charged with resisting arrest.

The 39-year-old woman sustained a severely sprained wrist.

Ms Bacon said she was kept in custody for about seven hours, which she felt was part of the police's unwarranted response to the group's "peaceful" protest.

"The most they're meant to be keeping you is six hours for what they call 'investigation', but after six hours when I started … seriously asking questions about it, they said that they could take an undetermined amount later to actually charge us," she said.

"No one in this movement is remotely interested in any violence."

Anne Picot, spokesperson for the WestConnex Action Group, agreed the police response to the protest action was disproportionate.

"We weren't even chanting," she said.

"People were literally standing around with placards.

"We were really quite taken aback by both the number of police and the force that was used."

Ms Bacon said she intended to fight her charges when she appears before court next month.

"I'll be pleading not guilty and defending myself," she said.

NSW Police declined to comment on the arrests.

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Journalist hits out at police after being detained at WestConnex protest

Warning: Offensive language in video below

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