Spectre of police brutality returns as British man is cleared of assaulting police

In a judgement handed down today, Magistrate Audrey Demicoli found Matthew Stephen Douglas-Fryer not guilty of assaulting officers, resisting arrest, threatening and reviling police officers, breaching the peace and being drunk and disorderly following an incident at St Julian’s police station on 1 January 2015.

However that judgement also unequivocally states that it had been the police who had assaulted Fryer.

Fryer, who was described by the court as “a man of little stature,” had been celebrating New Year’s Eve at a pub in Paceville, together with his girlfriend Guilia Manduca and his 16 year-old brother William.

Manduca had been driving the two men home during the early hours of the morning in her car, when, while still in St Julian’s, the vehicle’s path had been blocked by three drunk men who smashed the car’s front passenger window, injuring her.

“The accused got out of the car and sought the intervention and assistance of several police officers who were in the area and was punched in the face by one of the three men in front of the police officers. After the officers had calmed down the situation, they instructed Manduca and the accused to file a report at the St Julian’s police station.”

At the station, the officer at the front desk asked Manduca to wait outside because the station was very busy. The accused repeatedly insisted that he wanted to stay with his girlfriend while she filed the report because she was very distressed, but instead was pushed out of the police station by a Sergeant, who slammed the door and crushed the accused’s finger in the process.

The accused went back into the station and then an incident ensued between him and three police officers, who claimed to have been attacked by Fryer.

Fryer had told the court that the officers “leapt on him, and he was forcibly dragged to an area at the bottom of the stairs near the lockers where he was grabbed by the throat and punched three times by one of the officers.” Fryer was then handcuffed and arrested.

The officers involved, who were named as PS Lawrence Gabriel, PC Wayne Briffa, PC Braydon Borg and PC Christopher Attard, claimed that the accused had threatened to hit them with a bottle and insulted them, later saying that he was going to kill them.

According to the officer’s versions, the accused conveniently started banging his own head against the wall and on an iron bench under the stairwell. They insisted that the accused had injured his finger and lip “in the argument which he had just had with third parties.”

The magistrate noted that the acts of the case revealed the accused to be recorded as having stated that when he had refused to leave the police station, an officer had come up to him and, “within one inch from his face, shouted ‘I make the fucking rules,’ spitting in his face while talking and pushing him out.’”

Fryer had claimed to have replied “Sir, if this was your wife who had been attacked with a bottle, wouldn’t you want to stay with her to make a report?” At that point, Fryer said, the officer proceeded to shout that the Englishman was threatening him. The officer then allegedly said he would “break” the accused, before pushing him out and slamming the door, crushing the man’s fingers in the process.

The accused’s account had been corroborated by both Manduca and William Fryer in court, earlier this year, noted the Magistrate.

The court said that the incident had escalated because it had been mishandled by the police officers involved. After hearing the “evident difficulty encountered by the police officer in question when giving evidence in the English language ...it is very plausible to conclude that the said police officer misunderstood or misinterpreted the question asked by the accused,” who it said, had been in an agitated state.

A court-appointed medical expert had reported that the injury to the man’s finger could not have been sustained in the incident with third parties.

Damningly, the court also noted “a great inconsistency between the statements made by PS Gabriel and PC Briffa. Briffa had stated that the accused was gently told to leave the station and had been followed outside by the Sergeant “to calm him down,” after which he said that he saw them both on the floor. Later, the accused had tried to hit his head on the wall outside the station before being handcuffed and taken inside, where the accused proceeded to hit his head against the bench.

Unfortunately, the question of whether it was physically possible for a handcuffed man to contort himself in such a way as to bang his head against a bench was not addressed in the judgement.

The court did, however, note that although the officers involved all claimed to have been threatened by the accused, none of them had indicated that he had used any physical force against them, or explained the cause of their slight injuries.

“Although PC Briffa mentioned as an afterthought that the accused allegedly kicked and punched them, none of the other officers who testified mentioned this.”

The court held that the slight injuries allegedly suffered by the officers had not been the result of an intentional or willful violent act, noting the accused as having said that he had not seen the officers’ injuries because “I was too busy with my face squashed against the floor struggling to get people to get off me and stop hurting me.”

A medical report showed that Fryer had suffered injuries to his head, face, neck and a crushed finger, prompting the defence to ask how it was possible for the accused to have sustained those injuries while attempting to punch and kick police officers.

The court pointed out that “in addition to the absolute lack of any evidence showing the use of active force by the accused ... [for the charge of assaulting police officers to stand] it must result that the officers were assaulted whilst executing a lawful order. There was clearly no arrest warrant issued against the accused at the time which the officers were trying to execute.”

Inspector Elton Taliana prosecuted.