Former constable fined $400 for assault while on duty

Press, 31 August 1985, Page 5

Former constable fined $400 for assault while on duty

A former police constable was found guilty and fined 5400 in the District Court yesterday on a charge of assaulting Danny Eric Lester, aged 21, who had been apprehended for siphoning petrol. In sentencing Peter Vincent Cox, aged 30, Judge Paterson said that it appeared to be a case of overreaction and that in itself it was not a serious assault except that Cox had been a policeman on duty. The Judge refused an application for suppression of name.

Mr K. N. Hampton, for the defendant, said at the completion of sentencing that Cox would lodge an appeal against conviction.

Evidence in the case was heard on Wednesday. The charge related to an incident on October 15 last year when Cox was on duty. The assault occurred about 3.30 a.m. after a police patrol investigating a sighting of two young men siphoning petrol from a rental car firm’s

vehicle stopped a car in Beveridge Street, near the city centre.

The defendant had gone to the passenger side of the stopped car and asked Mr Lester to get out. In evidence, Mr Lester said that as he had done so the defendant had kneed him in the groin and punched him in the stomach. The defendant asked him to remove the petrol cans and Mr Lester said he had done so. He had not thrown the cans at the defendant, he said. After removing the cans, the defendant hit him on the cheek with his torch. In his evidence, Cox told of accompanying Constable S. M. Willcox’ to investigate the report of the petrol theft, and drawing alongside the car driven by Jeffrey Edwin Devenport, aged 18.

Cox said that when the car was stopped he saw activity in the rear seat. Mr Lester had been leaning towards the front seat, under which a cut-down softball bat was later found. Cox said he had been concerned about what sort of weapon Mr Lester may have been reaching for. He denied punching, kneeing, or hitting Mr Lester with a torch and said he recalled having put the torch in his pocket so that he could use both hands to pull Mr Les-, ter out of the car.

He said he had pulled Mr Lester out of the car because he “feared for the worst and acted accordingly,” not knowing what Mr Lester was reaching for inside the car.

In summary yesterday, the Judge said he found the approach by the defendant overly aggressive. He did not accept there were any grounds on which the defendant could have had concern for his own safety, he said. The concern that a weapon might be involved and the finding of the softball bat had been a hindsight by the defendant. The only aggressive act by Mr Lester was throwing the petrol cans in the gutter. They were not thrown at the defendant, the Judge said. “Clearly on my findings the defendant did apply intentional force ... any defence of self-defence is unreasonable.”

“My general acceptance of the evidence of the four occupants of the car was that they gave their evidence fairly and accurately.”

The Judge said he had been left in no doubt that this was an unduly aggressive patrol. Both men in the car had been apprehended with handcuffs and the Judge said he questioned

the need for this in either case.

“Both police constables were experienced and should have been capable of handling this incident in an experienced manner in spite of the hour of the morning.” The Judge was critical of the way in which the two teen-age girls, whom the police accepted had no part in the offence, were left to walk home and subsequently obtain their own taxi.

“The two constables were twice the ages of those girls and in a position to show more responsibility.” the Judge said.

He was also critical that the petrol cans and softball bat had been destroyed by the police. Disposal was a matter for the Court to decide, he said.

Mr Hampton said that Cox was suffering from a depressive illness that seemed to go back to 1981 and the Springbok rugby tour. The stress of the tour on Cox’s family had caused his marriage to break up. Cox had been a policeman for 10 years and had a good record including the Award of a Royal Humane Society medal for saving a drowning person, said Mr Hampton.

“It seems that 1981 was the turning point in his life. He has been the victim of

pressure society has imposed on the police since that time."

Mr Hampton said that Cox had just started a sixmonth term of imprisonment for theft of $l5O — money that had been handed in at the Christchurch Central Police Station.

The Judge said that his attention had been drawn to the matters of stress which were ever present in police work, particularly the Springbok tour. “It is very real and to some extent understood. This type of incident seems very symptomatic of that sort of condition,” he said. The Judge said there was no real injury and so no order was made for cost, expenses, or compensation.