Tablelands police sergeant on trial for assault over allegedly excessively forceful arrest
An Indigenous man was facedown, restrained by two officers and “not resisting” when a police sergeant allegedly ran into the fray, pinned the man with his knee and punched him three times to the head, a Cairns court has been told.
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An Indigenous man was facedown, restrained by two officers and “not resisting” when a police sergeant allegedly ran into the fray, pinned the man with his knee and punched him three times to the head, a Cairns court has been told.
Mount Garnet Police Sergeant Lee Adam Golding, 56, has pleaded not guilty at his trial in Cairns District Court this week to one count of assault occasioning bodily harm over the arrest in bushland on October 14, 2022.
Crown prosecutor Claudia Georgouras told the jury they would view arrest footage from three different angles during the trial as all officers involved had their body-worn cameras activated at the time.
She said Sergeant Golding was working that day with two officers from Ravenshoe to try to arrest the man, a Mount Garnet resident, who was wanted for breaching domestic violence orders, and he had been “running away” from the police for several months.
The two Ravenshoe officers were pursuing the man along a fence line on foot and Sergeant Golding was following in a police vehicle on the other side of the fence, the court was told.
She said that Sergeant Golding entered the arrest after the man had surrendered to the other officers, during which time he could be heard saying “sorry” and, “You got me constable … you got me good”.
“He (Sergeant Golding) pinned him to the ground and punched him three times,” Ms Georgouras said.
“At that time (the man) was compliant and was not resisting – he had surrendered to the other police officers – he was lying face down in a prone position with his hands behind his back with an officer on either side of him at the time the defendant approached him.
“Those punches are what make up the charge of assault occasioning bodily harm,” she told the jury, saying the man had cuts and bruises and a large egg on his forehead after the arrest.
Ms Georgouras said evidence would be called from the other officers and from police training experts, who would explain escalation, de-escalation, and use of force in the context of threats and police duties.
“The Crown case is that the defendant went beyond what he is trained and his actions were unreasonable and unjustified,” she said.
Judge Tracy Fantin told the jury the Crown had to prove four elements of the charge – that the man was punched by Sergeant Golding, that the assault caused him bodily harm, and that the assault was unlawful, and that the man had not consented to being assaulted.
She said the element of ‘lawfulness” was likely to be in dispute at the trial.
Mr Golding’s defence barrister David Jones KC, confirmed this to the jury.
“What the primary issue is … ‘Was the assault ‘unlawful’? It was what Mr Golding’s perception of the threat analysis was that is the issue in this case,” Mr Jones told the jury,
“Police officers, when they go to a scene, they make a threat assessment – they do that evaluation – based on what they know from various sources and when they see things happen, they evaluate it and they re-evaluate it.
“It was his perception of the threat, as it presented at that moment, that is the issue in this trial.”
The man arrested, gave evidence at the trial that he had been “dodging” the police for months, and that he knew Mr Golding.
“I’m sort of like an alcoholic bloke but I go to rehab,” he told the court.
“Lee was starting to get used to me and I was starting to get used to him and I started dodging him … I was starting to get a bit nervous so I’d always run from him.
“I would go into the bush and lay low for a little bit or maybe a friend’s place.”
In the body-worn camera footage, the man can be heard saying: “Oh my head, why are you hitting me like that. My right side – I’m bleeding. Why you got to f*** my face up even more.”
Mr Golding took the stand to give evidence, saying the man appeared to turn his head suddenly.
He said he was also concerned one or both of the officers had been injured, that their hold on the man was ineffective, “incorrect”, and that one officer was taking too long to put on the handcuffs.
He said these factors influenced his threat assessment in the moment, which motivated his “half-strength deflection strikes”, which he also described as a “hammer fist” and “pain compliance” technique.
“It was a very dynamic situation,”Mr Golding said.
He said that, on reflection, he “believed mistakes were made by everyone”, but stood by his in-the-moment assessment.
The jury is expected to retire to consider its verdict this week.
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