LAWYERS are threatening to boycott a court after four of five security staff pinned down a black solicitor and ignored his cries of “I can’t breathe.”

Dele Johnson said he thought for “about 30 seconds that I was in danger” during the incident in the youth court at Stratford magistrates’ court on May 1.

Mr Johnson passed through security and was given a pat-down when he arrived early for his hearing. But after a cigarette break, he refused to remove his shoes for another check and was forcibly removed from the court.

Eventually, he was let back inside the building to do his job but was stopped when trying to enter a courtroom. He said a guard pushed him and told him: “You’re not going in.”

Mr Johnson told the Law Society Gazette: “Then somebody grabbed me by the neck, another person grabbed my arm.” He said that four or five guards then grabbed him and he struggled, “feeling like I was fighting for my life.”

“Eventually they get me on the ground. There were quite a few grown men on my back,” he said. “I have asthma, my chest was being pushed to the floor, so now I am struggling to breathe.

“I was just trying to do my job. It was my duty to be there.”

The incident is the latest in a series of complaints over security measures at the court, with female lawyers complaining of highly invasive pat-down searches.

The London Criminal Courts Solicitors’ Association (LCCSA) said lawyers may boycott the court if the guards are not suspended by private company OCS.

A courts & tribunals service spokesperson said the complaints are serious and it is “urgently investigating them as a matter of priority.”

OCS was also approached for comment.