Probe launched after student hospitalised during fees protests

The police watchdog launched an independent investigation today after a 20-year-old student was left unconscious with bleeding on the brain after being hit on the head with a police truncheon.

Alfie Meadows, a philosophy student at Middlesex University, was struck as he tried to leave the area outside Westminster Abbey during last night's tuition fee protests, his mother said.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission launched an investigation, but warned that inquiries were still at an early stage.

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After falling unconscious on the way to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, Mr Meadows underwent a three-hour operation for bleeding on the brain.

His mother Susan, 55, an English literature lecturer at Roehampton University, said: "He was hit on the head by a police truncheon.

"He said it was the hugest blow he ever felt in his life.

"The surface wound wasn't very big but, three hours after the blow, he suffered bleeding to the brain.

"He survived the operation and he's in the recovery room."

Mr Meadows was with a number of friends, including two lecturers, Nina Power, a colleague of his mother's, and Peter Hallward, a philosophy lecturer at Kingston University.

But as they tried to leave the area where protesters were being held in a police "kettling" operation, the second-year undergraduate suffered a blow to the head.

He phoned his mother, who was also at the protest in a different area.

"He said he had been hit on the head and was bleeding," she said.

"I got out of the kettle and met him and he told me all about it.

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"He knew he had to go to hospital but he didn't initially know how bad it was.

"The policeman offered to get him an ambulance but he was in shock and didn't know how serious it was."

She said he had been trying to get out of the "kettle" because police had announced that people who were obviously not trouble-makers would

be allowed to leave.