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Source 2: A call for a public enquiryMr Leonard Gow submitted his account of events to Glasgow Town Council in support of local demand for a public enquiry into the treatment of Mrs Pankhurst and her supporters. He believed that the behaviour of the police had undermined the rule of law and simply encouraged more women to take up the suffragettes’ cause. | ||
Page from statement made by Mr Leonard Gow on behalf of witnesses to the arrest of Emmeline Pankhurst
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Transcript As Mrs Pankhurst had reached the platform, I maintain
it showed the greatest lack of tact and common-sense, nay the
greatest stupidity, not to allow her to speak before arresting
her. But from the fact that bodies of police were secreted in
the lavatories and throughout the building long before the
Meeting began, it is evident that these police had orders from
the first to wait until Mrs Pankhurst had begun her speech,
although the Authorities must have known that the result of
such a sensational and savage arrest in full view of the
audience might have produced a stampede among the audience
which would almost certainly have resulted in fatal injuries
to innocent citizens, for which, as I have already said, the
Authorities alone could have been held to blame. From where I
was sitting I could not see myself, but am informed she was
dragged down stairs head first - was much bruised, and her
shins broken. I am also told that a woman who saw how she
was being treated protested with the police saying "For God
sake don't use her so." For this she (I understand her name
is Mrs Nixon) was felled by a policeman's baton, and then
kicked down the remainder of the stairs by the police and
trampled on as they dragged Mrs Pankhurst out. This, together
with other cases of police brutality eye-witnesses are prepared
to swear to. |
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