Christopher Lee Maxwell, 22, pleads guilty to assaulting cop in Alice Springs Coles car park

A 22-year-old man who punched a female cop in the head, and was armed with “offensive weapons” during a carpark rampage in Alice Springs has been told to “stay out of trouble”.

Alice Springs Local Court. Picture: Gera Kazakov

A 22-year-old man who punched a female cop in the head, and was armed with “offensive weapons” during a carpark rampage in Alice Springs has been told to “stay out of trouble for six months”.

Christopher Lee Maxwell pleaded guilty in Alice Springs Local Court on Friday to two counts of assaulting police and one count of being armed with an offensive weapon.

Maxwell was arrested and charged on Wednesday, accused of going on a rampage in the Alice Springs Coles car park where he damaged vehicles and assaulted police.

The violence sent the nearby supermarket into lockdown.

Maxwell whispered his guilty plea from the dock when the charges were read by Police Prosecutor Phil Emmett.

Mr Emmett said Maxwell had been armed with “offensive weapons” – a bottle of coke and a piece of wood – and when police arrived they were met with “extreme aggression”.

“They were responding to reports of a male and a female in a violent argument.”

The court heard the woman was so scared she took refuge inside Coles and staff called the police.

Alice Springs Coles shopping complex and car park. Picture: Gera Kazakov

Maxwell attacked the officers “without warning” when they arrived, Mr Emmett said.

The court heard Maxwell punched one female officer in the head, and a male officer fell over.

Pepper spray was used to subdue Maxwell.

Maxwell’s lawyer Madeleine Ulbrick said her client “did not directly cause the second officer to fall over, he lost his balance in the melee”.

The court heard Maxwell, who was born in Port Augusta but raised in Kintore, was at the centre with his aunty when he got “stressed about money” and “lashed out at police”, Ms Ulbrick said.

A street in Kintore.

“He can’t explain why he did what he did, but he says he feels sorry for that woman (the officer) ‘because I punched her and she was just doing her job’,” Ms Ulbrick said.

Ms Ulbrick said her client’s mother drank during pregnancy, he is “functionally illiterate”, has “significant difficulties” with daily tasks and is a “highly vulnerable young man”.

Mr Emmett said the maximum penalty for assaulting a police officer is seven years jail, and this kind behaviour is “unfortunately quite common in Alice Springs”.

“It drew a great deal of attention from the community. Social media ran much commentary on this and about the incidents of this sort of behaviour in Alice Springs; calls to bring in the army, bringing the AFP to regain control of the streets in Alice Springs,” he said.

“It is at such a level in Alice Springs now that the community has grown completely intolerant – they are sick and tired of it.”

But Ms Ulbrick said due to her client’s early guilty plea his offending – most notably the coke bottle – should be judged on the lower side of the scale.

Judge Anthony Hopkins agreed, giving Maxwell one month in prison – backdated from his arrest – but suspending his sentence from his Friday court hearing.

“You’ve got to promise to stay out of trouble for six months,” Judge Hopkins told Maxwell.