Police officer admits to groping woman at Defqon. 1 festival
A SHIRTLESS, drunk, off duty cop who groped a random woman’s vagina at last year’s Defqon. 1 music festival in an “absolute moment of madness” is almost guaranteed to be kicked out of the force.
NSW
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A SHIRTLESS, drunk, off duty cop who groped a random woman’s vagina at last year’s Defqon. 1 music festival is almost guaranteed to be kicked out of the force.
Constable Mitchell James Willey on Monday pleaded guilty to indecent assault but his lawyer argued against a criminal conviction, saying it isn’t his #MeToo moment and he’s no “Harvey Weinstein’.
The 26-year-old laughed as he attacked the young partygoer when she walked out of a toilet block at the notorious Western Sydney rave in September 2017, making the young woman scream and tell her boyfriend “he grabbed my pussy”, agreed facts state.
The officer from Bankstown’s Police Transport Command has been suspended on full pay in the 13 months since.
Prosecutor Kate Owens said women should be able to go about their daily lives “without fear of this kind of interference with their bodies”.
“There is quite a vocal protest going on in this state and elsewhere about … being fed up with this kind of behaviour,” she told Penrith Local Court.
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But defence barrister Ben Clark said while these might be “nice political movements” they were not relevant and shouldn’t be used “as a death knell on his policing career”.
“My client is not to be sentenced for being Harvey Weinstein your honour, this is not #MeToo,” he said on Monday.
Mr Clark said Willey will inevitably be thrown out of the force for “an absolute moment of madness”.
“It was momentary, it was brief, it was on the outside of clothing,” he said.
“He obviously got carried away.”
Willey, wearing nothing but shorts and a backpack, was directly behind seven cops patrolling the festival when he reached for the woman’s shorts as she walked to the main stage with her partner, agreed facts state.
She jumped back and yelled “don’t touch me” before officers seized the unsteady Willey who said “bro, I done nothing” and “f****n I didn’t do anything”.
Mr Clark said “to the credit” of the “stoic young woman” she only asked for Willey to be booted from the festival.
But Willey, who has been a cop for five-and-a-half years, disappeared from the event leaving his backpack behind containing vodka and an empty flask, court documents state.
He was charged five days later.
Mr Clark said Willey’s relationship with his girlfriend recently broke down due to pressure from the case, and he was supported in court by a group of mostly male mates.
Mr Clark argued his client’s error of judgment had already resulted in an enormous amount of extrajudicial punishment by way of media publicity, legal costs and the end to his lifelong ambition to be a cop.
Magistrate Geoff Hyatt couldn’t find that Willey was genuinely remorseful, while Ms Owens claimed he was merely sorry for himself and the prospect of losing his job.
The magistrate convicted and sentenced Willey to a two-year community corrections order for his “reprehensible actions”.
Two revellers died of suspected drug overdoses and a dozen more were hospitalised at this year’s event at Penrith’s Sydney International Regatta Centre, bringing Defqon’s death toll to four in five years.