TWO YEARS ago, we reported the terrible treatment of Daniel Peterson-English at the hands of what Paul Collits described as the ‘military police of Danistan’ (named after Premier of Australia, Daniel Andrews), who excelled themselves through their thuggery during the worst days of covid lockdowns. On April 5 this year, Mark Tarrant, a Sydney-based lawyer and filmmaker who made a documentary about the assault on Peterson, wrote advising us of Daniel’s death: ‘Dan’s mother Margaret called me earlier today to advise me that Dan sadly passed away two weeks ago, aged 32. Margaret said the coroner’s report into Dan’s death will be released in June. She believes we need to be reminded of what happened to Daniel, and the public, on that fateful day in September 2021; for which the policeman in question was later cleared. Dan, he says, was ‘a fragile young man totally abused by the state’.
Daniel Peterson-English, the young man hurled to the floor of Melbourne’s Flinders Street Station by a police officer at the height of Victoria’s inhuman Covid-19 lockdown, has died.
After a minor earthquake shook Melbourne on September 22, 2021, Daniel took the train from his mother’s home in Eltham to Flinders Street Station in the Central Business District to have a look around – he was friends with Melbourne’s homeless.
Despite having a mask exemption, Daniel was roughed up and fined by police for being maskless. As can be seen on social media video, passers-by were untroubled by Daniel as he stood alone inside Flinders Street Station talking to the police.
Suddenly, Acting Sergeant Beau Barrett, a rugby player-sized police officer, came up from behind the thinly built Daniel, with two other police officers stepping back in alarm as Barrett grabs an unsuspecting Daniel and hurled him to the ground using a ‘sling-tackle’.
Daniel’s head hit the floor with a loud bang and his headphones came flying off. Someone in the train station shouted ‘oh sh*t!’ as the force of the assault sent Daniel’s feet next to his head, almost snapping him in two as he spun on the floor, unconscious. There was ‘blood and urine everywhere’ and Daniel was ‘calling for his mum’ when he regained consciousness, the media reported at the time .
So dangerous are sling-tackles they have been banned on Australia’s sports fields.
In dismissing charges against Barrett of assault and recklessly causing injury, Magistrate Rob Stary stated although Daniel’s arrest was ‘not in strict accordance with the manual’ a jury in his view would not convict Barrett.
Lawyers for the Victorian Government believed otherwise. To avoid the likelihood of a successful appeal against Magistrate Stary’s decision, Daniel was given a confidential payout and was subject to a strict gag order.
During his short lifetime since, Daniel was prohibited from speaking about the injuries from which he had suffered on that fateful day.
Shortly before he died, Daniel placed the Cross of Christ in his room. He died in Melbourne on March 15, 2025, aged 32.
The coroner’s report into the causes of Daniel’s death will be released in June 2025.
Mark produced and directed ‘COVID Safe Domestic Violence By The State’, a 40-minute film about Australia’s covid pandemic lockdowns. The film includes the assault on Daniel and features interviews with Daniel’s mother and his carers. The film was a semi-finalist in the Covid-19 category of the Academy-qualifying 2024 Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival and an award winner at the 2025 WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival. Mark is adding a dedication to Daniel at the end of the film. The film can be accessed here.
