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Police investigate rally speech where anti-vaxxer suggested healthcare workers face Nuremberg-style trials

Conspiracy theorist Kate Shemirani (Getty Images)
Conspiracy theorist Kate Shemirani (Getty Images)

Detectives are investigating a protest in central London where a prominent anti-vax campaigner made reference to the hanging of doctors and nurses at the Nuremberg Trials.

At the rally on Saturday Kate Shemirani appeared to compare nurses and doctors working during the pandemic to Nazis who were sentenced to death after the Second World War.

She claimed anti-vax campaigners were collecting a list of names and urged the crowd to send the details of NHS staff to her.

Addressing crowds in Trafalgar Square Ms Shemirani, who was struck off as a registered nurse last month, said: “Get their names. You email them to me...With a group of lawyers we are collating all that.

“At the Nuremberg Trials the doctors and nurses stood trial and they hung. If you are a doctor or a nurse now is the time to get off that bus.”

Ms Shemirani is a conspiracy theorist and anti-vaxxer who has claimed Covid-19 does not exist. She was suspended from practising as a nurse by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) in May and struck off in June this year.

The NMC said she had used “her status as a registered nurse as a way of promoting her own distorted version of the truth” and risked “putting the public at a significant risk of harm during a pandemic”.

Her comments during Saturday’s protest were widely condemned by politicians and NHS staff.

Palliative care doctor Rachel Clarke tweeted that Ms Shemirani was “inciting hatred”.

Kate Jarman, from Milton Keynes University Hospital, added: “This isn’t isolated to this event. We’ve had letters accusing us of genocide, I’ve had similar over social media, I expect every doctor, nurse and NHS employee who has any kind of public profile has. It’s abhorrent.”

Campaign group NHS Million said the comments had caused “considerable distress amongst NHS staff”.

Mayor Sadiq Khan branded the speech “utterly appalling” and said he had “raised it” with the Met.

A Met Police spokesman said: “We are aware of video circulating online showing a speech that occurred during a rally in Trafalgar Square on Saturday, July 24.

“Officers are carrying out enquiries to establish whether any offences have been committed. No arrests have been made.”

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