Police accused of stripping, kicking and stomping woman in Ballarat

CONFRONTING footage shows officers kicking and stomping on a woman, who also had her pants pulled down. Warning: Graphic.

A VICTORIAN police officer has told an anti-corruption hearing she “touched” a drunk woman in custody with her foot to calm her down but didn’t kick her, despite alarming footage showing the partially naked woman being stomped by other officers.

Confronting video footage shown at the opening of the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission in Ballarat shows officers kicking and stomping on the woman — who also had her pants pulled down past her thighs.

The woman is then sat up by Leading Senior Constable Nicole Munro and dragged along the ground out of the cell by another officer.

The woman is restrained with capsicum spray.

Sen-Constable Munro told the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission hearing into alleged use of excessive force at Ballarat Police Station that the woman, 51, was face down and handcuffed when she tried to “calm her down”.

“(I was saying), ‘Just calm down, we’re trying to help you here.’”

“I do remember touching her with my foot. I was trying to get her attention to calm her down,” she told the hearing.

“I did not kick her hard, there was nothing malicious.”

The woman was arrested in January 2015 for being drunk and showed aggression towards police when she was arrested, but complied with all police directions when she arrived at the station.

Ms Munro told Tuesday’s IBAC hearing she and her partner were at another incident when they were recalled to the station by colleagues who said the woman had become violent in the cells, attempting to kick and bite police.

The footage also shows the woman being pepper-sprayed and stripped naked from the waist down.

Ms Munro said it was a chaotic scene when she arrived and found the woman face down on the cell floor, her hands cuffed behind her back — so she tried to calm her.

The woman attempts to run from the officers.

Ms Munro said she didn’t see her colleagues forcibly kick or stomp on the woman, despite the video showing she was inside the cell when it happened.

The unidentified woman was then dragged to a hot shower, which according to the Herald Sun, “exaggerate the effects of pepper spray”.

The officers involved in the incident were cleared of brutality by an internal investigation, while the victim was charged.

The Ballarat police department account for around one in 20 assault complaints in Victoria between 2010 and 2015. That’s three times the state average.

“Regrettably time has not seen an improvement,” said counsel assisting Jack Rush QC.

“Complaints have remained constant and high.”

The hearing before IBAC Commissioner Stephen O’Bryan continues.

The woman is stripped, naked from the waist down.