A man was arrested in Belfast after biting a steward at a pro-life protest in the neck, a report has claimed.
A protest held by Northern Ireland pro-life organisation Precious Life was disrupted last week after a man injured one activist attending the event by biting him on the neck, a report has claimed.
The Saturday rally was reportedly held to commemorate the 4,136 unborn babies aborted in the region since the procedure was legalised by politicians in London.
According to a report by Irish news website Gript Media, the unnamed man had been attempting to disrupt a speech by the director of Precious Life, Bernadette Smyth, before allegedly biting the steward.
“The man, who had a small child with him, continually made the gesture of a twirling motion of his finger to his head, and pointing at Ms Smyth and loudly telling the young child that Ms Smyth was crazy,” a statement on the incident released by the pro-life group on Wednesday read.
The group then describes the disruption as escalating after a steward tried to intervene to calm the man.
“Eventually a female steward, fearful that Ms Smyth may be attacked, approached the man to politely ask him to stop his antagonistic behaviour,” the group claims. “The man immediately launched into an assault of the female steward by trying to grab her placard and shouting abuse at her.”
“A male steward then intervened and placed himself between the assailant and the woman to prevent him attacking her,” the statement continued. “The assailant then began shouting at the male steward. As the steward tried to restrain him, the assailant viciously bit the steward on the neck.”
“Police rushed to intervene and the assailant was arrested and led away in handcuffs,” the group went on to say.
Footage uploaded by the group appears to show the incident as described, with an unknown man with a child screaming at a child “get out of my face”, before leaning in towards his neck.
Precious Life describes their steward as being shaken after the incident, requiring hospital treatment for what was described as “a large bite mark on his neck”.
Although the deeply sectarian region of Northern Ireland has on paper been largely left to govern itself since the late 1990s, recent political instability largely as a result of post-Brexit tensions has left the territory under the direct control of politicians in Westminster.
As a result of this, despite significant political resistance to abortion in Northern Ireland, the procedure was legalised in 2019 by the UK’s House of Commons, alongside gay marriage.
There has since been a significant outcry over the move, which has been perceived as a political overreach by British politicians, with a legal challenge beginning in the court of appeal on Wednesday arguing that the matter should have been left to politicians in the devolved region.