A New South Wales police officer who was accused of brutally sack whacking one of his senior colleagues so hard that said colleague had to have a testicle removed has been found not guilty of assaulting him.
Constable Paul Michael Vella, 27, was charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm, reckless grievous bodily harm and common assault over the incident involving Senior Constable Gary Stoddart, 41 at Glebe Police Station back in 2015.
Vella argued in court that he and Stoddart were regular sack whackers at the cop shop – which sounds kinda weird, but whatever – but Stoddart disputes this, claiming that on this occasion Vella actually grabbed his nuts and squeezed hard.
Regardless of what actually transpired, a sack grab does not fall under the umbrella of a sack whack. It’s an entirely different ballgame altogether. Few would dispute this, I’m sure.
After the incident, Stoddart claimed he suffered from severe pain in his testicles, and was eventually diagnosed with epididymitis, a condition in which the tubes inside the testicles become inflamed. He alleged this was a result of Vella’s actions.
There was no CCTV footage of the incident, though the magistrate found the accounts of both men to be credible. The court instead saw medical records and text message transcripts between the two men.
Magistrate Robert Williams found that with the evidence provided, he was “unable to find beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty,”
Vella’s barrister Dany Eid said the magistrate made the right decision in the end. “Police have got a very stressful job and they play practical jokes on each other from time to time.”
“But at the end of the day this case is a clear example of those days are gone, aren’t they.”
Indeed.
Source: ABC.
Photo: The Simpsons.
