A “cheeky” protester known for wearing a sandwich board to get his point across has suffered a fractured skull and bleeding on the brain after an attempted arrest.

Police threw street entertainer Danny Lim, 78, headfirst onto the tiled floors of Sydney’s Queen Victoria Building, footage shows.

Video shared online sparked a groundswell of support for the septuagenarian, with a protest arranged for Wednesday afternoon in Sydney.

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Mr Lim was wearing a sandwich board that says “SMILE CVN’T! WHY CVN’T?” which has twice been found by the courts to be cheeky, not criminally offensive.

Greens senator David Shoebridge told Federal Parliament the interaction with police who wanted him to move on had left Mr Lim with a fractured skull and bleeding on the brain.

In the footage, a witness can be heard gasping at the sight of Lim’s injured face and a small amount of blood on the tiles.

Photos of the elderly man later at St Vincent’s Hospital reveal a stream of blood trickling down his cheek, and his neck in a brace.

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NSW Police has promised an “independent review” amid an outcry over excessive police force.

Lim, a former city councillor and regular sight on city streets, was arrested in 2017 and 2019 for the wearable sign.

He was successful in the courts on both occasions, with a Sydney magistrate in 2019 being highly critical of the behaviour of arresting officers.

Magistrate Jacqueline Milledge said the law was concerned with what would offend the “hypothetical reasonable person”, not someone who was “thin-skinned (or) easily offended”.

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NSW Police said officers arrived at QVB about 11am on Tuesday after Lim declined to leave “when asked”.

“Police will allege the man was subsequently issued with a move-on direction by officers and failed to comply,” a statement said.

“The man’s arrest was discontinued after he struggled with police and sustained an injury to his cheekbone.”

Police say they have reviewed body-worn video of the incident.

-with AAP