Town councillors are calling for police protection after a Covid ‘freedom protester’ disrupted Monday’s full council meeting, causing members to walk out en-masse.

On his way to the door, Cllr Ray Hendriksen raised his fist at the woman and shouted “shut your mouth.”

Tempers flared and chaos ensued when the member of the public interrupted district councillor Joseph Rose’s report to read a monologue questioning the official Covid-19 narrative.

She was repeatedly told to stop and asked to leave by councillors, but refused, forcing

the Mayor Cllr Ben Piper to suspend the meeting and, along with the majority of councillors, troop out of the Guildhall building.

Totnes Guildhall
Totnes Guildhall (Contributed)

As he walked past the intoning woman, Cllr Hendriksen’s temper flared. He shook his raised fist and shouted at her.

Cllr Piper admonished Cllr Hendricksen for swearing, but ended up shouting at the woman himself, asserting the town council is not qualified to answer questions about the national Covid facts and figures.

The woman screamed back: “You’re a public servant,” at which Cllr Piper told her to calm down.

After the woman left Cllr Piper reconvened the meeting.

Totnes Mayor Cllr Ben Piper
Totnes Mayor Cllr Ben Piper (Contributed)

As the councillors settled back into their seats, Cllr Hendricksen muttered “I’m tired of us becoming targets.”

It is not the first time councillors have come under fire from anti-vaxxers involved in two New World Alliance rallies held in the town.

At their last three monthly full council meetings, councillors have faced repeated questions about the decision by the Paige Adams Trustees (who are all town councillors) to ban the New World Alliance from holding a self-penned “truth conference” in the civic hall last November.

The group was formed by Totnes man Dr Stephen Hopwood who stood as a Freedom Alliance party candidate advocating “no lockdowns, no curfews” in the Devon County Council elections in 2021.

On its website, Freedom Alliance calls itself a “group of activists” who oppose the “state’s covid narrative.”

During the public question time ahead of Monday’s meeting, councillors were quizzed once again about the ban by both Douglas Hambly and Nemo Jones - whose questioning descended into a shouting match.

Cllr Victoria Trow told Mr Jones: “I do not wish to get into a lengthy debate with you which we are never going to win, on either side.”

Cllr Piper demanded “civil behaviour” and told Mr Jones if he did not stop shouting over people he would be asked to leave.

Later, Cllr Marion Adams said the behaviour of the public had made her feel unsafe and called for police protection at meetings.

She said: “We need a police presence here now for the next couple of meetings because I don’t feel comfortable going through what happened tonight again.”

Cllr Hendriksen agreed, saying: “We are going to continue to get disruption. They won’t take any notice of the town sergeant they will only take notice of the possibility of arrest, and we should ask to have a police presence for at least the next two meetings.”

Town Clerk Catherine Marlton said it may prove difficult to recruit a uniformed officer and suggested adjourning the meeting until a future date should the situation become unmanageable again.

However Cllr Jacqi Hodgson insisted it was worth pursuing a police presence, even if just for the 30-minute public question time, so as not to hand power to the “disrupters”.

“They might only need to do it once but I do think actually that we shouldn’t be feeling intimidated,” Cllr Hodgson said.

Cllr Jacqi Hodgson
Cllr Jacqi Hodgson (Nigel Cheffers-Heard)

“We have got a duty to the town to actually hold the meetings, because we are discussing town matters.

“It’s giving the power to the disrupters by the fact that they can affect us like that, because we do that a couple of times and it could actually encourage it.”