About 200 people came to Old Street for an action called by Disobedience. When the Sambaband arrived just before 6pm, the roundabout is already blocked.
Only 1 police van and about 12 officers are visible, but they soon increase to five vans, later 7 more turn up. They start to push people off the road to clear one line for traffic. 3 reports confirm that the police are getting more and more heavy handed.
After 6pm, a soundsystem starts playing. The situation escalates. People try to defend the soundsystem, police start a fight, confiscate the soundsystem, push people off the road.
The crowd is being coralled in tightly. After about 1 hour, people are being let out onto the pavement, behind the railings. The police have declared this space as a space for a legal demonstration, while the street was not. The demo disperses around 1900.

Quotes from 3 different reporters:

"They are aggressive from the outset"

"They pushed people off a 3 foot wall."

"Police is coming in really heavy. They are beating peoples faces with their fists. They are extremely violent."

" I haven’t seen that for ages. They coral them in relly tight, push them tight together, punching pp in the face - absolutely un_be_lie_vable."

"The public around asks - what r u doing to them? It's disgraceful. After pummeling quite a lot of people they have got really heavy with the crowd. They seem to be attacking pp right left and center. I've never seen anything like it."

"People can't really leave. They are all surrounded by yellow jackets. The street is still blocked."

"They are trying to pull people into the cordon. Such a hard response! There are now about 60 police."

"At 18.30 we are in that shep pen position. We cannot leave. The crowd outside roundabout is cheering up. Police are really violently hitting people. They are causing injuries, crush people against bikes."

" The amount of support from the crowd outside the roundabout, on the sidelines, is great."

"It's quite ironic. A police first aider joined in the pushing."