Police officer convicted of assaulting two Aboriginal women and a man on DV call out

An NT police officer who assaulted two Aboriginal women on a call out in Berrimah last year will likely face the sack after narrowly avoiding a jail sentence, a court has heard. WATCH the footage of the assaults here.

A woman is comforted by relatives after Senior Constable Raymond Neilson-Scott "put her on her arse". Her face is obscured for cultural reasons. Picture: NT Courts

AN NT police officer who assaulted two Aboriginal women on a call out in Berrimah last year will likely face the sack after narrowly avoiding a jail sentence, a court has heard.

Senior Constable Raymond Neilson-Scott was convicted and fined $4000 in the Darwin Local Court on Friday after being found guilty of assault and aggravated assault.

The court heard Neilson-Scott had more than a decade’s experience on the force when he was called out to a domestic violence incident on March 23 where he attacked the women and a man.

Neilson-Scott claimed he pushed the women over after one of them spat on him but in handing down her ruling on Friday, judge Elisabeth Armitage said she rejected that assertion, describing the officer’s evidence as “unreliable and unconvincing”.

Ms Armitage said Neilson-Scott “painted the complainants as the aggressors … when that was not in fact the case” and his actions “fell markedly below the minimum standards expected of a police officer”.

“In fact the person who was aggressive on that day was you and you swiftly stepped out of the role of a police officer acting in the course of his duty,” she said.

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In arguing for a jail term to be imposed, prosecutor Mary Chalmers said while the offending was at the lower end of the scale, Neilson-Scott “acted in breach of his fundamental duties” as a police officer which increased his moral culpability.

Ms Chalmers said Neilson-Scott “lost his temper” and there was no evidence he had learnt his lesson.

“There is no explanation so far as to why he simply snapped and lashed out at the women,” she said.

“That is unforgivable in our submission.”

In arguing for no conviction to be imposed, Neilson-Scott’s lawyer, Peter Hanlon, said his client would “forever rue the day that he made the wrong decision”.

“He stepped up when, in retrospect, he should have stepped back,” he said.

Mr Hanlon said there was “a lesson to be learned for every other serving police officer” from Neilson-Scott’s experience and while he “once thought he acted appropriately in the circumstances” he now accepted that he had “assaulted innocent people who he was there to protect”.

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Mr Hanlon said there was still a chance Neilson-Scott could keep his job if he avoided a conviction and should be spared a jail term due to his current employment and his former role as a prison guard.

“Things do not go well for these sorts of people when they go to prison,” he said.

In sentencing, Ms Armitage said while she accepted Neilson-Scott was “remorseful for the inappropriate, illegal use of force on the particular night”, he “had completely overstepped the mark in your behaviour towards (the victims)”.