A 61-year-old antivaxxer was today charged with common assault after former health secretary Matt Hancock was ‘pushed’ and called a ‘murdering scumbag’ on the London Underground.
Geza Tarjanyi, who has previously targeted Sajid Javid, Chris Whitty and Jonathan Van-Tam, will appear at Westminster Magistrates Court next month also charged with two public order offences, British Transport Police said.
Video shot on Tuesday showed Mr Hancock being confronted as he walked through Westminster Underground Station. The MP was allegedly pushed as he walked near an escalator, causing him to say: ‘Don’t push me! You pushed me!’
One of the public order charges is in connection to a separate incident on Parliament Street last Thursday when the MP was again confronted and asked, ‘What are you going to say about murdering people’.
BTP acted after receiving a report of a man being ‘assaulted and harassed’ at the station next to the House of Commons before 9am on Tuesday.
Tarjanyi was released on bail to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on February 22.
After the arrest, Mr Hancock’s spokesman said: ‘Both Transport for London staff and the British Transport Police were fantastic and the man has since been arrested.’
He added that ‘this sort of behaviour is a rare occurrence’ and stressed the ‘importance of shutting down baseless misinformation which causes so much harm’.
Mr Hancock, 44, was health secretary when the coronavirus pandemic struck and was a key figure in the lockdown restrictions and vaccine rollout that followed.
He resigned after leaked CCTV images showed him kissing an adviser in his office, in breach of his own social distancing guidance.
