A PEACE campaigner said he was handcuffed, arrested and bundled into a police van after calling out “who elected him?” at the proclamation of King Charles III in Oxford. 

Symon Hill, 45, told the Morning Star he felt he had been arrested for “having an opinion,” after he was “grabbed” by two officers and taken to a police van. 

Mr Hill, a history tutor and campaigner with the Peace Pledge Union (PPU), said he had been walking home from church when he came across crowds marking the proclamation of King Charles outside Carfax Tower in central Oxford on Sunday afternoon. 

He said he had not gone to the square with the intention to protest, but decided to stop and listen when he realised that the proclamation was starting. 

“When it got to proclaiming Charles as King Charles III I called out: “Who elected him?” he said. 

“A couple of people turned to me and said: ‘Shut up.’ I responded saying: ‘Our head of state is being imposed on us without our consent’.”

Three security guards then approached him before he was “grabbed off” them by two officers who placed him in handcuffs and put him in the back seat of a police van.

The churchgoer was later de-arrested and told he would be contacted for an interview and could still be charged. 

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Mr Hill said he was “shocked and shaken” by the incident, adding: “I didn’t think what I was doing was arrestable… I was literally walking home from church!” 

He added that there was confusion over the grounds of his arrest. On being driven home by an officer, he said he was told that he had been arrested under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, previously dubbed the “anti-protest Bill,” by campaigners. 

However, a police spokeswoman later said he had been arrested on suspicion of a public order offence under section 5 of the Public Order Act. 

“[The officers] seemed very vague as to what law they were arresting me under, and it all felt very like I’d been arrested for having an opinion,” Mr Hill continued. 

“In the last week we’ve had a new PM that has been elected by a tiny number of people, a new head of state who hasn’t been elected by anybody … and now people being arrested for a fairly minor expression of disagreement with it. I find that quite frightening.”

Mr Hill said he was now looking into a possible claim for unlawful arrest. “It seems to be that whatever view you take of the monarchy there is also an issue here about the right to free expression, the right to peaceful protest, the right to disagree.

“If you can be arrested for calling out a criticism of an unelected head of state, what else can you be arrested for?”

A Thames Valley Police spokesperson said: “A 45-year-old man was arrested in connection with a disturbance that was caused during the county proclamation ceremony of King Charles III in Oxford.
 
“He has subsequently been de-arrested and is engaging with us voluntarily as we investigate a public order offence.”

Another protester was also arrested on Sunday afternoon after expressing republican views at a separate proclamation event in Edinburgh. 

A woman holding a sign saying: “F*** imperialism, abolish monarchy” was arrested moments before the reading of the proclamation outside St Giles’ Cathedral, where the Queen’s coffin in due to lie on Monday. 

A police spokesman said a 22-year-old woman was arrested “in connection with a breach of the peace.”