Police dragged parents from dying daughter’s hospital bedside – and called father an animal
Distressing video shows dad – himself a senior doctor – wrestled to f loor and cuffed as wife screams in anguish
SHOCKING footage obtained by The Mail on Sunday shows how police officers violently dragged a grieving father from the hospital bedside of his dying daughter shortly after he had been told her life support was being withdrawn.
The harrowing film from a police body camera shows the moment Rashid Abbasi, a 59-year-old hospital consultant, was wrenched away from his critically ill six-year-old daughter by an officer holding his neck.
Mr Abbasi, who has worked in the NHS for more than 30 years, had his legs and ankles strapped together and was wheeled away from his daughter Zainab on a trolley. His wife Aliya, a former doctor, was grabbed from behind, pulled from the bedside and fell backwards on to the floor of the hospital ward screaming.
The disturbing incident took place in a hospital in the North of England that the MoS 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. 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.
Police were called to Zainab’s bedside after a complaint about Mr Abbasi’s behaviour.
The MoS can also reveal how:
The distressing footage shows that, as Mr Abbasi was arrested, a female police officer shouted: ‘You’re acting like an animal, it’s disgusting’;
Officers repeatedly refused to retrieve emergency medication from his pocket, despite his cries that he was suffering chest pains;
He says he was later told that he had suffered a heart attack and underwent a heart procedure the following day;
Mr and Mrs Abbasi fought a three-week legal battle against hospital bosses to overturn draconian reporting restrictions that prevented them telling their story;
Mr Abbasi has begun proceedings to sue police for wrongful arrest;
In their first newspaper interview, the couple last night condemned the ‘brutal’ and ‘callous’ way they were treated by police.
The episode shines a spotlight on how the NHS handles sensitive cases when parents disagree with medics’ decisions to withdraw their child’s life support. It follows the traumatic cases of Alfie Evans and Charlie Gard, terminally ill children whose parents fought long legal battles over their care.
Rashid and Aliya Abbasi’s daughter Zainab suffered from respiratory problems and a rare genetic illness called Niemann-Pick disease, which meant she was likely to die during childhood.
The couple clashed with Zainab’s doctors for years over her treatment. They say 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 last July, Mr and Mrs Abbasi believed that, while their daughter was dangerously ill, she could survive with the right care.
But on August 19, doctors told the Abbasis that Zainab was dying. An audio recording reveals 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.’
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.
Mr 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.
Mr Abbasi told the MoS: ‘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.
On Friday Mrs and Mrs Abbasi won a legal battle to partially lift reporting restrictions.
Andrea Williams of the Christian Legal Centre, which is helping the couple, said: ‘The family showed extraordinary restraint in the face of brutal treatment. They genuinely feared that their only daughter was about to die.’
The hospital said: ‘When there is a risk to the safety of any of the patients in our care, to relatives, visitors or to our staff – or interference with the delivery of care and treatment – it is necessary for us to seek help from the police. This is never taken lightly. It is essential we maintain a safe and secure environment, particularly where we are caring for very sick and vulnerable patients.’
The police force involved, which the MoS cannot name for legal reasons, said its officers responded to a call ‘of a man being violent and abusive towards staff and that he had assaulted a consultant’.
They added: ‘While we recognised this was a very distressing time for him and his family, our duty was to ensure the safety of all those present.’ They confirmed Mr Abbasi was arrested on suspicion of breach of the peace and assaulting police officers, and that one officer was treated in A&E. The force added: ‘Due to the nature of the incident, it was necessary to detain the man and when he complained of feeling unwell he was taken for treatment as soon as possible.’
The force said they had reviewed the footage and that it ‘sets out a very different picture to the limited version of events which have been presented to us’.
‘Officers behaved like barbarians … they would not listen to us’