A distraught father who sued police after he was dragged away from his dying daughter’s hospital bedside has lost his legal fight against the force.
Shocking footage obtained by The Mail on Sunday showed Dr Rashid Abbasi, an NHS consultant, being wrenched from six-year-old Zainab shortly after he was told her life support was being withdrawn.
The harrowing film from a police body camera captured him being forcibly removed from a children’s intensive care unit in August 2019 by an officer holding him by the neck.
Mr Abbasi’s wife Aliya, a former doctor, was also grabbed from behind, pulled from the bedside and fell backwards on to the floor of the hospital ward screaming.
The 64-year-old subsequently brought a civil claim for wrongful arrest, false imprisonment and assault and battery against Northumbria Police.
However, Mr Abbasi’s case was rejected today by a judge, who described Mr Abbasi as a ‘menace’ on the ward.
Judge Recorder James Murphy said there was more than sufficient grounds for the police to believe there was an imminent risk of a breach of peace.
He concluded that Mr Abbasi’s rights were ‘not curtailed’ and it therefore did not constitute a wrongful arrest or assault.
Rashid Abbasi, his wife Aliya and another relative, are seen at Zainab’s bedside as police enter the ward
Doctors Aliya and Rashid Abassi, who had an altercation with hospital staff and police officers, brought about by a dispute over the care of their daughter Zainab
Shocking footage obtained by The Mail showed Dr Rashid Abbasi, an NHS consultant, being wrenched from six-year-old Zainab
Mr Murphy said according to The Mirror: ‘I would be very surprised that a member of the public let alone a police officer would not have decided there was likely to be a breach of the peace.’
‘If I was a bystander having watched this footage, a reasonable description would have been that Dr Abbasi was a coiled spring waiting to breach the peace,’ he added.
Mr Abbasi was said to have become ‘very angry’ when he was told he could not return to the hospital to visit his daughter.
Staff reportedly found his behaviour ‘intimidating’ and security was called.
However, speaking after the ruling, Mr Abbasi said the description of him as a menace was ‘unwarranted’ and ‘hurtful’.
He said: ‘At court this week, the officers accepted that, from the time when they arrived until the time they laid hands on me, I was not acting aggressively.
‘They accepted that I was not threatening anyone. They accepted that I was not intimidating anyone.
‘I am disappointed therefore that the arrest was held to be lawful and the description of me by the judge as a menace was unwarranted and hurtful and is not borne out by the video footage which tells its own story.
‘I will be seeking advice from my lawyers in respect of an appeal.’
Pictured: Zainab Abassi who suffered from a life-limiting genetic condition. Both of her parents, Aliya and Rashid are medical doctors
Aliya begs for them both to be allowed to stay, not to waste a moment of their remaining time together. ‘When someone has got hours… we look after her 24 hours, 24 hours a day’
The incident involving Mr Abbasi took place in a hospital in the North of England that the Mail cannot name for legal reasons.
It came after the parents were involved in a protracted dispute with doctors over the care of their critically ill daughter.
The six-year-old was suffering from respiratory problems and a rare genetic illness called Niemann-Pick disease, which meant she was likely to die during childhood.
Medics insisted Zainab should be allowed to die but Mr and Mrs Abbasi fought for further treatment that they were convinced would keep her alive.
The couple clashed with Zainab’s doctors for years over her treatment.
They said that on two previous occasions when Zainab was critically ill they had successfully argued for her to be treated with steroids instead of having life support withdrawn, and were proved correct when her condition improved.
After her admission to hospital in July 2019, Mr and Mrs Abbasi believed that, while their daughter was dangerously ill, she could survive with the right care.
But the following month on August 19, doctors told the Abbasis that Zainab was dying.
An audio recording revealed how one doctor told them that ‘the next steps would involve taking her off the ventilator’.
Rashid and Aliya pleaded for further tests, but one of the doctors refused, saying the process of moving Zainab on to palliative care needed to start ‘straight away’.
Rashid told them they would have to get a court order to do so.
Urged again to carry out more tests, the doctor replied ‘We are not going to be doing any more going round in circles’, adding: ‘You will never come to terms with this.’
Rashid and Aliya noticed their daughter was missing some key development milestones but believed she was otherwise thriving
In the video, Aliya turns to the tallest of the officers to beg for empathy for her grief, asking: ‘Do you have children?’. He says yes
The medics then attempted to hand the couple a letter restricting Mr Abbasi’s visiting hours amid claims that staff felt ‘threatened and intimidated’ by him.
Dr Abbasi, a respiratory expert who works at a different hospital, stormed out of the meeting but hospital staff then called police, claiming he pushed a senior doctor who attempted to prevent him returning to his daughter’s bedside.
Half an hour later, four police officers and two security guards gathered at Zainab’s bedside where the devastated Abbasis and one of their sons were quietly comforting her.
The bodycam footage shows how officers asked on a number of occasions for Mr Abbasi to leave his daughter’s bedside and talk to them outside the ward but he refused.
Mrs Abbasi suggested the officers talk to her husband at the bedside. She pleaded with them to show ‘compassion’, saying: ‘We were just informed they were going to take the tube out of our daughter.’
But after just over five minutes, an officer gave Mr Abbasi a final warning before wrenching him away from his daughter. One officer held his neck as he was dragged in his chair away from the bedside, the footage shows.
After being forced on to the floor, Mr Abbasi, who suffers from serious heart problems, complained of ‘chest pain’, only to be told: ‘You’ve brought this on yourself.’
The officers are seen claiming that Mr Abbasi kicked and bit them during the struggle. Mr Abbasi denies the claims.
Zainab suffered from a life-limiting genetic condition. Both of her parents, Aliya and Rashid are medical doctors
Rashid is seen being detained by police in the hospital that cannot be named
‘You are acting like an animal,’ the female officer tells Rashid, firmly adding: ‘Your behaviour in front of your child is disgusting’
Mr Abbasi previously told the Mail on Sunday: ‘The pictures speak for themselves. They behaved like barbarians. They were not prepared to listen. My daughter was given a death sentence half an hour before they arrived.’
Mr Abbasi was taken to accident and emergency, where officers later de-arrested him. He said he was told he had suffered a heart attack and the next day he underwent an emergency angioplasty.
Following the incident, the NHS trust applied to the High Court for permission to take Zainab off the ventilator, but on September 16, just three days before the hearing was due to start, Zainab died.
Dr Abbasi’s solicitor, Daniel Cooper, said today: ‘Our client was sitting peacefully by his dying daughter’s bedside, when police officers decided to drag him away.
‘As the body worn footage shows, the force they used to do so was brutal, painful, and highly inappropriate given our client was a grieving father on a children’s intensive care ward.
‘In evidence, the officers accepted that, from the time when they arrived to the time they laid hands on our client, he was not acting aggressively.
‘They accepted that he was not threatening anyone. They accepted that he was not intimidating anyone.
‘We do not consider that it was reasonable for the arresting officer, PC Baxter, to form a belief that our client was going to imminently breach the peace.
‘We are therefore disappointed the arrest was found to be lawful. We will be advising our client on the merits of an appeal in due course.’
