Tribunal hears handcuffed woman tasered by police without warning outside Gold Coast nightclub

A senior police officer has faced disciplinary action for lying about an incident where a handcuffed woman was tasered without warning outside a Gold Coast nightclub and advising the junior cop who deployed it to lie because he could be in a “world of poo”.

A woman with her hands cuffed behind her back was Tasered by police without warning at the base of her neck causing her to collapse outside a Gold Coast nightclub, a tribunal has heard.

The shocking incident can be revealed after a senior police officer faced disciplinary action for lying about what happened and advising the junior cop who deployed the taser to lie because he could be in a “world of poo”.

Details of the alleged cover-up of the unreasonable use of the Taser were revealed in the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal after the state’s Crime and Corruption Commission took action against the police officer in charge of the force’s internal discipline arguing he did not impose a strong enough demotion period on the senior officer.

The Sunday Mail can also reveal the full name of the disgraced senior officer, known only as Sergeant Austin and identified as a bomb technician “with an impressive record” who served on the Gold Coast, remains secret by the Queensland Police Service and QCAT after its decision published in March.

Footage of the young officer Tasering the handcuffed woman outside a nightclub after midnight in Surfers Paradise on September 22, 2019, was captured on CCTV and body worn cameras.

But that footage has also been suppressed from publication, a tribunal has heard.

The woman, only known as MK, was arrested after she left the unnamed nightclub when the senior officer and another officer struggled to get her inside the back of a police van.

The tribunal heard that without warning, the junior officer came up behind the handcuffed woman and Tasered her upper back at the base of her neck, causing her to collapse.

The incident happened outside a nightclub on the Gold Coast.

Immediately after, Sergeant Austin said to the junior officer he should “word up that drive stun … that she had slipped the cuff and her arm was going around …”, an apparent reference to doctoring a report on the incident.

The tribunal heard that when Sgt Austin and the junior officer returned to the police station following the incident, he told the young cop that he wasn’t supposed to Taser someone who was handcuffed.

Sgt Austin then told him again to state the woman had slipped the handcuffs and to make sure this point was focused on in the “use of force report”.

Sgt Austin then authored and sent the junior officer an email containing “a precis of the incident” which deceptively described the woman as “waving her arms with the handcuff still attached to her wrist and the Taser having been deployed due to the risk of injury”.

Sgt Austin was aware the junior officer entered this inaccurate description into an internal police computer system, the tribunal decision states.

Sgt Austin then wrote another email to other senior officers which deceptively stated the claims again.

“Due to the risk of injury that may be inflicted by the offender swinging around the handcuff attached to her right wrist,” the email stated.

In August 2020, Assistant Commissioner of Police Maurice Carless – who is in charge of discipline – demoted Sgt Austin’s pay and rank to Senior Constable for a period of 12 months, to be suspended after three months, and ordered he serve 20 hours community service, the tribunal heard.

The tribunal heard a junior officer deployed the taser. Picture: AAP Image/Dave Hunt

Sgt Austin actually completed 76 hours of community service at the Gold Coast PCYC.

He was also left embarrassed after other officers and staff from licensed venues recognised he had been demoted when he wore senior constable insignia for three months, the tribunal heard.

But the CCC argued the demotion’s effective term of three months was just a slap on the wrist and asked the tribunal to order police permanently demote him because his lies rendered him “unfit to continue at the rank of Sergeant”.

The CCC submitted to senior member Samantha Traves that Sgt Austin’s dishonesty was aggravated because it was to a superior officer which can “erode public confidence and destroy the trust of other” police.

The CCC submitted to Ms Traves that comparable QCAT decisions saw former officers Bret Chadwick and Laura Wadham sacked.

However Ms Traves ruled that Sgt Austin’s actions were not as serious as Chadwick, who lied to investigators about what he saw occur between his police partner and a British backpacker who suffered a broken jaw during an arrest.

“Although I accept that there was, to some extent, an attempt to misrepresent or distort the truth where a member of the public had been inappropriately tasered,” Ms Traves states in her decision.

“Having viewed the video footage of the incident, the police officers present were not, in my view, at any sensible risk of harm.”

Sgt Austin told investigators during an internal police discipline interview on March 23, 2020 that he was “not intending in any way to mislead or cover up” and in doing “damage control” he may have made the junior officer think he was “going to be in a world of poo”.

“It was not my intention to cover anything up or openly to lie or straight faced lie,” Sgt Austin told police investigators, according to the QCAT decision.

QCAT media spokesman Andrew Dunne told The Sunday Mail that “there is a non-pub order on the matter” when asked for the full name of Sgt Austin.

The non-publication order covers the identity of “any third party”.

Sgt Austin is named as the second respondent in the case.

A QPS spokesman said: “The Queensland Police Service is unable to provide the members first name in relation to this matter.”