Iron bar used in assault on traffic officer

Press, 26 April 1979, Page 4

Iron bar used in assault on traffic officer

A traffic officer, who called at an address to investigate a minor traffic offence, had his clothing ripped and was struck about the buttocks by a 1.3 m iron bar, the Magistrate’s Court was told on Tuesday.

David Matthew Holden Tipple, aged 23, a shop proprietor, denied assaulting Lindsay Bruce Channings on February 21, 1979.

In evidence he said that when two traffic officers visited him he denied any knowledge of the speeding offence allegedly committed the previous day and had asked them to leave. He requested them to leave again, then said he would have to force them if they did not.

Traffic Officer Channings had made a move forward and they both fell back on the shingle. He later went inside the house to dress and the traffic officers still remained on the property. He repeatedly told them to leave, then later grabbed an iron bar and said he would force them. He told the Court he swung the bar a couple of times and hit Channing when the traffic

officer moved forward. “I wasn’t sorry I hit him,” said Tipple. “I was swinging the bar and that was the only way I could get them off the property.”

When asked by Detective Sergeant R. Powell whether he thought he used excessive force, Tipple questioned how could it have been excessive if they leapt on him and held him down on the shingle. Mr Channings sail he went to Tipple’s house in relation to an offence the previous day. He had had to pursue a man on foot for about a block before losing him.

When questioned, Tipple had denied the offence and after being questioned about the car in his garage he became a bit irate and started to use obscene language, said the witness.

He was ordered from the property and the defendant threatened to throw him off, using a string of obscenities. Tipple had then grabbed him by the shirt and tie and pushed him to the ground. He had gone to call for

assistance while the defendant went in to dress. Later Tipple went to the garage, picked up a bar and started swinging it. He said that if he had had his rifle he would shoot them, said the traffic officer. The bar struck him on the left buttock and caused bruising. In his submissions, counsel (Mr G. R. Lascelles) said the whole incident would not have happened if the officers had complied with the law. They had brought the incident entirely on themselves by insisting on staying and trespassing. Mr K. W. Frampton S.M., said he believed the traffic officers’ story to be more credible than the defendant’s. He found that the charge of assault was proved by both incidents. Although the traffic officers did become trespassers in law, Tipple had used excessive force.

It was a reasonably serious assault and could have had serious consequences. He convicted and fined the defendant $l5O.