Police officer sues Met for £200,000 after being thrown from horse during protest
A police officer is suing the Met Police after she was seriously injured when her horse bolted during a Black Lives Matter protest.
PC Nicky Vernon claims the force was aware her 14-year-old horse Rocky had a history of unsafe behaviour and “exposed her to a foreseeable risk of injury.”
In the incident, which took place in June 2020, Vernon was thrown backwards off the horse when she collided with a traffic light in Whitehall after protesters threw missiles at officers.
The 47-year-old was left in hospital for eight days with a collapsed lung, broken collarbone and shattered ribs. She has now filed a High Court negligence case.
The Sun reports she is still receiving treatment more than four years later for post traumatic stress and anxiety.
She also alleges the Met broke its own crowd control rules. She claims the force “exposed her to a foreseeable risk of injury” by sending her and her mounted colleagues into a densely packed crowd.
PC Vernon was thrown violently into traffic lights outside Downing Street after a protester hurled a bike and other missiles at her horse, causing the animal to panic and bolt riderless back down Whitehall.
Violence erupted on Whitehall after tens of thousands of protesters had gathered in the capital as part of the BLM movement, which was sparked after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25, 2020.
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The incident caused PC Vernon to be slammed into a traffic light and was knocked unconscious before the horse continued galloping down the road where it hit a woman protester and a lamppost.
The Metropolitan Police Federation revealed at the time that PC Vernon was likely to be off duty for four months because of her injuries, with its chairman Ken Marsh calling her and her colleagues “heroes” for their actions on the day.
GB News has approached the Met Police for a comment.
The Met Police said at the time that total of 27 police officers were hurt during the protests in London.
Asia Ahmed, an activist who attended several of the protests, told BBC News shortly after the protest: “These situations don’t come from nowhere”. She told the BBC she had seen the police “acting very aggressively” towards protesters.
Ahmed said that a “lot of people” she spoke to “feared for their lives when they saw police horses”.
She told reporters: “I don’t think that was the best tactic to use if you’re trying to create a peaceful environment.”