The Catholics were in the same room at the Ballarat court complex back in March, at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Now it was the turn of the troubled Ballarat police at the Independent Broad-Based Anti-Corruption Commission. 

Disturbing video footage emerged from police CCTV cameras of misconduct and brutality against members of the public and even a policewoman.

She was on extended leave for mental health issues and had been arrested for drunkenness.

The policeman, Sergeant Christopher Taylor, in the force for 26 years, had 18 complaints against him, mostly by women, before the incidents which bought him to IBAC. These put him in the top 1 per cent of police with complaints against them in the state. He was accused of "abusive and aggressive" behaviour in putting female visitors to the police station – themselves making complaints – in chokeholds.

He was also questioned about the welfare of the arrested policewoman and whether she was put in a warm shower after being sprayed with capsicum foam. Warm or hot water exacerbates the stinging effects of the spray.

The woman's underwear had also been removed. Video showed her being kicked and stood on in the cells.

Sergeant Taylor denied seeing her lying on the cell floor shower with no pants on. He was asked whether he was in the cell doorway.

He said "not that I can recall". Was the shower water hot or cold? "I didn't check the water temperature."

Asked why ambulance officers did not check on her - as they had with an on-duty policewoman accidently affected by the spray - he said: "I can't tell them how to do their job."

Ballarat police are not the only force in the state to cop accusations of being cowboys.

Regional stations such as Stawell and Bairnsdale have had bad reputations in the past.

But Ballarat's reputation, since the 1980s, has never gone away.

Mirroring the problems the Catholic Church brought upon themselves in and around Ballarat, the police, according to observers, can tend to operate in a culture of fear, silence and unaccountability.

The current mayor of Ballarat, Des Hudson, was a policeman before donning the robes. He declined to comment for this story.

"What we have seen this week is the tip of the iceberg," said a veteran Ballarat lawyer, who asked not to be named because "my life wouldn't be worth living". 

The lawyer said potential complaints against police go unreported because people fear "payback"; a client who was arrested for being drunk in public was bashed unconscious in the cells two years ago and was advised to sue the police but never did.

"He and his parents were shit-scared," the lawyer said. "They know payback can be targeted."

The lawyer alleged another client had been kicked in the back by a Ballarat detective and that bullying within police ranks (especially of females and gays) was rife.

"They are nasty," the lawyer said. Last year a former Daylesford policewoman, Nicki Lewis, took the force to the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission alleging homophobic bullying.

The Central Highlands Community Legal Centre's principal lawyer Glen Ludbrook said complaints to the centre were rare, which he said was "unusual". 

But he said Ballarat was a tough patch. "There's a lot of crime and there's a lot of people who put up a fight."

The newest data shows crime rose nearly 8 percent in a year. The state government, Victoria police command and Ballarat's police boss, Superintendent Andrew Allen, have all blamed the drug ice and the city's low socioeconomics for rising crime and difficulty in policing it.

Police Minister Lisa Neville told Fairfax Media the city faced "a number of challenges ... We'll continue to support our police in Ballarat to build a better culture." The city has had 80 new police since 2011, plus a new station at Ballarat North. Another new station opens later this year. The government and Victoria Police also talk about "ethical health" in relation to Ballarat - it is taken "very seriously", according to Inspector Ian Geddes of police command in Melbourne.

Superintendent Allen told IBAC that statistics around complaints were flawed, but his second-in-charge, Inspector Bruce Thomas, conceded no attempt had been made to correct the data.

A senior police source said Ballarat was a statewide "laughing stock" where respect for the "local command structure" was low. Superintendent Allen often joins street police at crime scenes and has also been seen directing traffic. "It's a bastard of an area to police," said the source. "But leadership is becoming an ever-increasing problem."

Inspector Geddes said complaints against Ballarat police had fallen and would continue to. But some smells do linger. In 1984 Ballarat police were implicated in the scandal surrounding former premier Henry Bolte's missing vials of blood after he crashed his car on a local country road. In 1995 a Maryborough family were charged with 10 offences after complaining of a bungled police raid. In 2004 a Daylesford police corruption whistleblower received death threats. Then in Maryborough again, in 2004, local police faced 50 allegations of rape, stalking and intimidation of women over a decade and were the subject of a scathing ombudsman's report on police behaviour.

"It seems to get more of this kind of thing than its fair share," the senior police source said.

- Chris Johnston is a senior journalist at The Age