A jury has heard differing accounts from witnesses during the fourth day of the trial of two police officers accused of assaulting a woman at the Ballarat Police Station in January 2015.
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The witnesses gave evidence as they recalled the events of the evening of January 14 and the early hours of 15 January 2015, when it is alleged former detective Yvonne Berry was assaulted.
Leading Senior Constable Nicole Munro, 48, and Senior Constable Steven Repac, 29, have pleaded not guilty to assault charges stemming from the incident. Munro is charged with one count of assault, while Repac is charged with five counts of assault.
In the County Court on Monday, Ms Berry continued her evidence under cross examination from defence for Repac, Barrister Geoffrey Steward who suggested she was lying and suffering from “conspiratorial paranoia”.
“You are telling us that every police officer, who comes into this court has sat in a room and has concocted a story between them,” Mr Steward said.
Ms Berry said “it was entirely possible and she had known it to happen” and that she was “telling the truth.”
Asked under re-cross examination by Crown Prosecutor Andrew Grant what had happened to charges against her, including assault police, Ms Berry said all of the charges had been withdrawn on 25 August 2016.
As the trial continued, a resident, who had tried to help Ms Berry on the night of the incident, took the stand.
Florist Julie Collins said she had been at her Brown Hill home that evening, had heard “a commotion” and had gone outside to see what was going on.
She said Ms Berry was outside with her white station wagon and two other neighbours. She said she did not know Ms Berry, but took her car keys and invited her inside to wait for police who neighbours had called.
Asked why she had taken the keys, Ms Collins said “I could see she was drunk and shouldn’t be driving”. She said she gave the car keys to the responding police when they arrived.
Ms Collins said Ms Berry had “stood up and tried to leave through the back door” when police arrived, but was brought back into the kitchen and she had otherwise had a “calm demeanour” and “a normal voice.”
Ms Collins said she did not recall Berry having the car keys in her hand or “brandishing” them at police, and did not recall her swearing, or being verbally abusive.
Mr Steward suggested Ms Collins accept that “her recollection might be a bit hazy in some parts.”
Later in evidence, Detective Leading Senior Constable Cameron McCrae said he had been working night shift on 14 January 2015, with then First Constable Anthony McKay and they had responded to reports of a “female yelling in the street” at 10.53pm and had gone to the Brown Hill address.
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Detective McCrae said upon entering the house, he had seen Berry “trying to leave via a rear laundry door” and that he and Senior Constable McKay had “brought her back into the kitchen to speak to her.”
He said Ms Berry “wasn’t co-operative” and was “incoherent and intoxicated” and that she had said she was “visiting her friend”, gesturing at Ms Collins.
Detective McCrae said he had noticed “something protruding” from her top and asked what it was and that Berry had removed keys from her top and waved them around.
He said he had taken the keys and once outside Ms Berry had been “obnoxious, belligerent and abusive” wanting to go to her car, which “he thought was a blue commodore.”
Detective McCrae said Berry was assessed in the ambulance and, while paramedics had wanted to take Berry to hospital, she had got out of the ambulance and was “stumbling and calling us names”.
He said by then, officers Repac and Munro had arrived with the divisional van and it had “taken three of us” to put the handcuffs on and get her into the van.
Senior Constable Anthony McKay will resume giving evidence when the trial continues on Tuesday.
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