University student Anna Bako spared jail for attack on police officer

A magistrate has refused to impose a mandatory six-month jail term on a university student who punched and kicked a policewoman outside a wild Glen Iris Airbnb party.

Anna Bako joined a brutal attack on a policewoman outside a Glen Iris apartment. Picture: Facebook

A young woman who viciously assaulted a policewoman in a gang attack outside a wild Airbnb party has dodged a mandatory jail term, despite her victim telling a court she fears returning to work.

Uni student Anna Bako and a group of her female mates punched and kicked the sergeant to the ground when the officer tried to stop a drunk woman from getting behind the wheel outside a Glen Iris party in January 2021.

In the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Monday, the 22-year-old and her friend, co-accused Monica Goch, sat silently as they listened to Sergeant Victoria Fields fight back tears as she described the impact their brutal assault had on her and her family.

The officer, who was hospitalised with a concussion at the time, said she still experiences “excruciating pain” and her two little boys “hold on very tight” now when she leaves for work.

“I still can’t lift my son up properly and cuddle him like I used to,” she said.

Sergeant Fields and constable Ryan Williams were responding to the wild Airbnb party on the second level of a Malvern Rd complex at 5am when they became involved in an argument with the driver of a car leaving the party.

The driver and her female passengers, including Ms Goch, got out of the car before they began assaulting both officers on the street.

The court heard Bako then joined the attack because she “felt the group was being unfairly targeted and disrespected” after constable Williams pushed her friend back when she failed to comply with orders.

Sergeant Fields was then thrown to the ground by the group before she was kicked in the back and the neck as she tried to shield her head, “too frightened to look up”.

The once hopeful and positive officer said the attack had left her “hyper-vigilant, fearful and sceptical” and that her family had been forced to cover “thousands of dollars in medical bills”

Magistrate Rosemary Falla, who called the offending “extraordinarily violent”, reminded the court that police officers fall into a “special category of victim”, with six-month mandatory jail terms for those who assault emergency workers.

But after hearing about Bako’s past trauma and her responsibility to care for her two younger sisters in Adelaide following her mothers recent death, Ms Falla decided to spare the politics student jail time.

She handed her a two-year community corrections order instead.

“(This) was not an easy decision to reach,” Ms Falla said.

“This behaviour must never be repeated again.”

Bako is not the first violent offender to dodge mandatory jail time for assaulting an emergency worker.

In 2019, a decision to spare young festival goer James Haberfield time behind bars was met with anger after he assaulted two paramedics while on drugs at Victoria’s Rainbow Serpent Festival.

Ms Goch, whose lawyer successfully sought an adjournment to review a report from her client’s GP, will return to the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on August 8 for sentencing.