So much for those ‘tough new laws’ to protect SA Police officers | David Penberthy

If this is how we look after our police in SA, it’s no wonder there’s a recruitment crisis, writes David Penberthy.

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When it comes to the need to recruit more police, almost every key institution in South Australia is on a unity ticket. SAPOL itself, the State Government, the Police Union, the State Opposition.

The judiciary however did not get the memo.

Back in 2019 the Police Association ran a five-month campaign that resulted in a specific new law with a maximum 15-year prison sentence for anyone who assaults a police officer or emergency services worker.

Some injured police were the face of that campaign, among them Senior Constable Alison Coad, who contracted a communicable disease after a woman deliberately spat directly into her mouth during an arrest in Whitmore Square.

It was a noble and important campaign framed around something on which every decent person would agree.
Policing brings with it unique risks, and police deserve special protections from the type of random violence they routinely face in the course of their work.

Rightly, the new laws extend to all categories of frontline emergency services workers.

Brooke Haynes and Dakota Jenkins leave court in Adelaide. Picture: Eva Blandis

So five years on how are those “tough new laws” going?

Well, the tough new laws exist alright. There’s just a problem with their application.

Earlier this year we saw the tawdry tale of Brooke Lee Haynes, the so-called “hard-working stay at home mum” who became embroiled in what her defence lawyer suggested was an understandable mishap during a night on the town with her partner.

Their date night ended up in a melee at a Hindley St kebab shop during which Haynes spat on two police and another officer broke her arm when she fell during the mayhem.

Her lawyer Peter Hill told the court Haynes and her partner were enjoying a night off from their son who turns one the following month.

It was billed as a rare night out scenario where one thing simply led to the other.

“They had a night off from their son, they have responsibly caught an Uber into town but parents who don’t get away much, the night’s got out of hand clearly due to intoxication,” Hill said.

“We say it’s not the case that this is a lady with drinking problem or a drug problem, she’s simply a hardworking stay-at-home mother.”

This character reference seemed to work with the Magistrate after Haynes entered guilty pleas to one count of aggravated commit assault with a weapon and two counts of assault a worker. Haynes was sentenced to just three months imprisonment, but fully suspended upon her entering a good behaviour bond of 18 months.

Raina Jane Cruise outside an court. Picture: Roy VanDerVegt

Assault victim Constable Anthea Beck. Picture: District Court

Fast forward six months and another even more violent offender was appearing before the local courts.

And again, a glowing character reference and a lengthy sob story have helped someone beat serious assault charges against a female police officer who was pregnant at the time of the attack.

Raina Jane Cruise is an anti-vax fanatic who was making quite the spectacle of herself while drunk at the Exeter Hotel on Rundle St in October 2021.

Cruise was ranting at patrons for wearing Covid masks and when security got involved she assaulted two guards before Constable Anthea Beck tried to intervene.

Cruise said Constable Beck was acting like she was from “Nazi Germany” and did not respect her authority.

“Obey me” she screamed at the policewoman before grabbing her by the hair and shouting “I will smash you one-on-one, b***h” and then tore a huge chunk of skin and hair from Constable Beck’s scalp.

She also kicked Beck in the stomach with the officer telling the court in her victim impact statement “when you kicked me, you kicked my baby”.

None of Constable Beck’s compelling evidence was able to compete with Cruise’s trump card - evidence from a psychologist that the defendant had unresolved psychological issues from the death of her baby from SIDS two decades ago which she wrongly attributes to routine post-natal vaccinations.

Apparently this and the later death of Cruise’s parents and husband explains how things all got so out of hand at the Exeter that night.
It also explains why District Court Judge Joanne Deuter ruled that jail time was inappropriate for this offender.

“Your son died at two months’ old in 2003 from SIDS, 14 days after he had received routine vaccinations,” Judge Deuter said.

“Ever since, you have had a mistrust of vaccines, believing they were the cause of his death, and remain steadfast in that view.

“You became a crusader. A psychologist says those beliefs are not amenable to rational persuasion and are really a manifestation of a complex bereavement disorder.

“I am not here to judge your beliefs … in my view, your rehabilitation and progress in society would not be best served in prison … I find good reason to suspend your sentence.”

There is no doubt Raina Jane Cruise has had a tough life. I mean that with total sincerity.

But so have a lot of other people. And they don’t get around acting like Raina Jane Cruise.

What we see so often from the courts on these issues can be fairly described as an inversion of the good Samaritan principle.

You look at a drunk and delusional fanatic who has never taken responsibility for her mental health problems, attacking a pregnant woman who’s devoted her life to protecting the public, and the sympathy goes not in the direction of the victim but the perpetrator.

In the context of 2019’s “tough new laws” protecting police, these cases are the living demonstration of the punters maxim that the laws aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.

And if you are interested in a career in policing you can contact SAPOL via

www.police.sa.gov.au/join-us