By Rebecca Peppiatt
CCTV footage of the moment WA Police Constable Anthony Woods was run over by a suspected car thief he was attempting to apprehend has been shown to a jury at the start of the alleged killer’s trial.
Reagan Ainsley Chown, 25, is on trial in the WA Supreme Court, charged with manslaughter over Woods’ death three days after he became trapped under a car allegedly driven by Chown in 2023.
WA Police Constable Anthony Woods.Credit: WA Police
Chown denies being responsible for the 28-year-old’s death, but has pleaded guilty to stealing a car and driving in a reckless manner.
On Monday, prosecutor Justin Whalley opened his case to the jury, outlining the alleged events in Ascot on the evening of June 8 two years ago.
Whalley told the jury Woods was a passenger in a marked police car that responded to an alert on a vehicle that was being driven with stolen number plates.
They followed the vehicle, Whalley said, and confirmed it had been stolen, before activating lights and sirens to direct the driver to stop.
The car, allegedly driven by Chown, did not slow down and Whalley claims the pair reached speeds over 97km/h in a 40km/h zone along Epsom Avenue, just off Great Eastern Highway.
The accused then allegedly turned into a dead-end road and stopped, Whalley said, prompting Woods to jump out, approach the driver’s side of the stolen car and open the door.
“The accused pulled it shut again and either then or before or after, put the vehicle into reverse and accelerated backwards,” Whalley said.
He said Woods opened the driver’s door again, after which he got “trapped or wedged” between the open door and the car. Chown then allegedly shifted into reverse and Woods deployed his Taser at him while still trapped.
“The accused continued reversing,” Whalley told the jury.
“He hit a pole and got stuck on a post.
“Woods fell from the trapped position and ended up trapped under the vehicle.”
Whalley illustrated the series of events during his opening address with CCTV footage of the incident taken from a nearby home. In it, Woods can be heard yelling: “Stay where you are, stay where you are.”
Woods was freed by his colleague and taken to hospital, but succumbed to his injuries days later.
Whalley told the jury a blood sample taken from Chown following his arrest showed he had methamphetamine in his system, and that during a police interview Chown “took the position it was Constable Woods’ fault”.
“He said, ‘If I didn’t get hit by the Taser none of this would have happened’,” Whalley told the jury.
“He said ‘It’s not like I wanted to f---ing hit the accelerator. I was running away’.
“And when he was asked by police why he hadn’t just pulled over he said, ‘I just wanted to go to a comfortable place where I felt comfortable’.”
The state’s first witness – Woods’ partner, Detective Sergeant Aaron Fisher – told the jury he watched on as the constable got “caught up” with the car before getting “dragged”.
“I just saw him start going under the vehicle and the vehicle going over the top of him,” Fisher said.
The jury was then shown body-worn camera footage of Fisher pulling Chown out of the vehicle moments after Woods was pinned underneath.
“Is he OK? Is he OK?,” Chown can be heard repeatedly asking Fisher as he is placed in handcuffs.
Woods’ mother Natalie left the courtroom when he could be seen in the background of the footage lying under the vehicle.
Chown’s legal team, headed by Paul Bevilacqua, told the jury his client was not in control of the car due to the effect of the Taser.
“Some people may think he was ultimately responsible,” Bevilacqua said.
“‘If he wasn’t driving a stolen car, and it wasn’t in reverse this wouldn’t have happened’, and you wouldn’t be blamed for thinking that.”
But he told the jury the trial was not about moral responsibility.
“It was disgraceful criminal behaviour that is all too common these days,” he said, referring to Chown stealing a car and driving it recklessly.
“But the answer to all of this is your oath – to bring a true verdict without sympathy or prejudice.”
The court heard one of the witnesses due to give evidence was an American medical practitioner who specialised in the effects of Tasers on the human body.
They would help determine whether Chown was incapacitated in the moment he put the car into reverse and allegedly Woods over.
Other witnesses will include a man and a woman who were passengers in the car with Chown during the incident.
The trial expected to last fewer than 10 days.
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