Policeman Abuse of Power - QLD

A policeman who brutalised three arrested night-clubbers in the north Queensland tourist town of Airlie Beach will serve nine months' jail. Benjamin Thomas Price, now 34 and retired from the force, pleaded guilty to three counts of assault occasioning bodily harm and one count of common assault.

Graphic surveillance footage of two of the attacks, played to the Townsville District Court last week, showed Price lifting a handcuffed woman off the ground by her hair and shoving a fire hose into the face of a restrained and screaming man.

Sentencing Price, judge Stuart Durward castigated him for his "cowardly and contemptuous" actions. "You deliberately abused your position as a police officer and deliberately inflicted pain and suffering," Judge Durward said.

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