NT Police Superintendent Virginia Read claims assault charge ‘vindictive’ after unusual Stuart Highway traffic stop
A senior Territory cop told fellow officers that a woman who complained about her conduct was being ‘vindictive’, after allegedly running the civilian off the road, confiscating her keys and licence and pushing her.
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A Darwin judge said he was “absolutely unconvinced” a senior police officer assaulted a motorist she allegedly “ran off the road” in a bizarre highway stop.
NT Police Superintendent Virginia Read was charged with aggravated assault following an off-duty traffic-stop arrest described by prosecutors as an “abuse of her power”.
On Friday Darwin Local Court heard the senior officer was driving a police recruitment vehicle with the cruise control set to 130km/h when she noticed a car speeding on the Stuart Highway near Adelaide River, 113km south of Darwin, on July 17, 2022.
Despite being in a non-operational role, driving an atypical cop car, with no handcuffs or police radio and dressed in a Maroons rugby league jumper, Read chose to force the other driver to pull over.
“The way the person was driving made me believe I‘d be finding an accident up the road if I didn’t pull her over,” Ms Read later told fellow officers.
The driver of the other car, youth justice worker Skye-Lee Anderson, told the court that Read “tried to run me off the road”, and she felt vulnerable being questioned by a person in a rugby jersey she was not initially convinced was a police officer.
In a video, Ms Anderson is heard asking the plain-clothed officer to give her keys and licence back and to prove she had exceeded the 130 km/h limit.
“Aren’t you by law meant to show me that I was speeding? Don’t you have a radar? No you don’t,” the younger woman said.
Prosecutor Camille McKay alleged that Read repeatedly “threatened” to arrest the younger woman, initially for failing to provide her address — and when that was provided — for speeding, failure to pull over and inattentive driving.
Read asked Ms Anderson why she didn’t stop and she replied: “I didn't know it was a police car, I had music playing, you had two little lights (flashing) how was I supposed to see that?”
When Ms Anderson complained that she had somewhere to be, Read responded loudly: “I don’t give a f — k”.
It is alleged that while Ms Anderson was providing her address, Read said “guess what” and then pushed her away from the vehicle.
The alleged assault lasted just four-tenths of a second.
The superintendent said she was “frustrated” and Ms Anderson was “antagonistic”, telling officers she believed the civilian complaint was “vindictive”.
Ms McKay said there were inconsistencies in the senior officer’s three statements about the level of physical contact, and that Read had lied when in claiming she said “you’re under arrest”.
“It's an important piece of the puzzle when it comes to an arrest, to tell somebody ‘you’re under arrest’,” Ms McKay said.
She argued that in breaching police general orders, Read was no longer acting in the exercise of her duties.
However, Judge John Neill expressed scepticism that the general orders were legally binding, and described it as an “oath-on-oath” case with the word of a senior police officer against another woman.
“I am absolutely unconvinced beyond a reasonable doubt that based on the evidence before me that there was a two handed push,” Mr Neill said.
The hearing was adjourned to Tuesday November 14 for defence’s closing submissions.
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