A Liverpool mum has described how she was brutally arrested by French police in Paris in front of her terrified children.
Crosby based high-school teacher Natalie, 33, who wished to be identified by her first name, had spent the day in the Liverpool FC fan-park with her children, aged 16 months, six and eight, and her adult step-daughter, 25, while husband Gareth attended the Champions League final.
The couple said their family trip turned into a traumatic experience when an angry and aggressive police officer began shoving 5ft tall Natalie, before dragging her to the ground and placing her in handcuffs. Natalie spent the night and following morning in custody in a cell with a "filthy" toilet while detectives accused her of punching a police officer in the face, a claim she says was "nonsense".
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After she urged them to look at CCTV of the incident, Natalie was told she could leave and would not face charges.
Gareth and Natalie had planned to meet after the match and return to their accommodation in the outskirts of the city. However, like thousands of other fans in the French capital, their expectations were shattered by the chaos outside the Stade de France.
Gareth, a Hillsborough survivor who gave evidence at the inquests in Warrington, had his phone stolen by local criminals outside the stadium and lost touch with his family. Natalie and Gareth had arranged a back-up plan before he left in case of any phone issues, deciding that if they could not contact each other they would meet at the Nation metro station near the fanpark.
Natalie told the ECHO: "I thought we were taking our children to an amazing experience that they’d never forget for good reasons, win or lose. We’ve travelled a lot. We’ve lived in Spain, we think we know how to organise and take care of ourselves. But Saturday night in Paris was something else."
Gareth said: "Saturday night up to getting away from Saint Denis [the area around the stadium] was bad enough. My phone had been stolen, I’d been tear gassed twice, two of our group didn’t even go in to the match.
"Then I found out Nat had been assaulted and arrested by police in front of our kids, amidst their own Paris chaos near the fan park. We are devastated, but we won’t be leaving it here. I’m not naïve, I was at Heysel and Hillsborough. We won’t be taking any of this lying down.”
As chaos reigned in Paris, Natalie said the authorities shut off access to Nation metro station, leaving her without a way of meeting her husband. She said: "I asked for directions to get back to our accommodation after they’d unexpectedly shut the metro. They claimed not to know the name of the next station, they couldn’t have helped any less...
"There were people being stabbed outside the ground and I was there with three young children, if someone comes and tries to take stuff from us what are we going to do? It sounds silly but you expect the police to help you in some way; you don't expect them to say 'it's not our problem'."
Natalie says she was angry and stressed by the situation, but is adamant she did nothing to warrant what happened next. She said: "I didn't know what to do next. We had tried to get an Uber but it didn't work.
"One officer said 'you can get a taxi' and pointed at an area where some other people were getting in one. So I was like 'ok', and I started trying to flag down a taxi. The same police officer then told me to 'move'. I said 'you just told me to go over here?' but he shouted 'move' and got hold of me.
"I said 'what are you doing' and instinctively tried to push him off. That was it, at that point he threw me to the floor and his arm was on my back and his hand was on the back of my head. The children are screaming, the baby is in floods of tears, he's 16 months old and doesn't have a clue what's going on. I can't believe what's happening."
Natalie said she was handcuffed and hauled to her feet. After initially refusing to let her speak to her adult stepdaughter, she says the officers allowed her to pass over the key for their accommodation before putting her in the back of a van and taking her to a police station.
She said: "I was begging them, please, my children have been left in Paris and I still don't know if they are safe. I don't know if my husband is safe."
The following morning, Natalie was taken to an interview room and asked to give a statement with the assistance of an interpreter. She said: "The first things she said was 'the children are safe and Gareth is outside'. At that point I sort of relaxed a bit."
She explained what happened and was told the officers' statement differed from hers in two ways: They claimed she had run up to an officer and "punched him in the face" before "throwing herself to the ground".
She said: "I told them 'why would I do that?' I would not do that in front of my children. I'm not saying I was calm, I'm not saying I wasn't stressed, but all I was asking for was help."
The interview ended when one officer suggested "there will be CCTV", which Natalie says she thought was "great". At 3.30pm that afternoon, she was released after being urged to sign some papers which were not translated for her. She said: "I was told because I was a mum with children the magistrate did not want to charge me."
Natalie says she was not seriously injured in the arrest but did sustain bruising where the officers fingers dug into the back of her arms, legs and back.
She said: "I was pushed to the pavement and screamed at. I instinctively tried to release myself from his grip and then was thrown to the floor, hand-cuffed and arrested. This was all in front of my by now screaming young children. I am left feeling hurt, unsafe, and very angry that my children had to witness that.”
The ECHO contacted Paris Police for comment.
