Constable told to pay compo

A constable found guilty of smacking a 17-year-old schoolboy to the floor in a police interview room has been ordered to pay him $1500 and do community work.

Suppression of the man's name was lifted by Judge Barry Lovegrove in the Wellington District Court yesterday but it will stay in place until an appeal has been heard.

The Wellington constable has been suspended on full pay since shortly after October 26, 2003, when an investigation into his assault on Porirua schoolboy Maululu Vaoese began.

The judge found him guilty of assault with intent to injure.

Maululu Vaoese had been picked up in Brooklyn along with his cousin Lusama Eli who later admitted breaking into the car of an off-duty policeman.

At Wellington central police station Maululu Vaoese agreed to a video interview.

During the interview Maululu Vaoese accused the constable and another officer of assaulting him and calling him a "lying nigger".

Judge Lovegrove said the victim was a softly spoken, clean-cut young man caught up in compromising events. Denied a right to have a lawyer present and faced with the constable's persistence that he give a statement, Maululu Vaoese changed tack, the judge said, and began making allegations.

Judge Lovegrove said the constable had had enough, got up, switched the video off and using a palm strike designed not to leave marks, hit him, "propelling him clean out of his chair some one or two metres to the floor where he lay in a crumpled heap".

The constable's actions were seen. He later denied them, even asking a police officer if he should destroy the videotape.

The judge said the highest standard of behaviour was expected and the constable's behaviour fell well short.

Judge Lovegrove said he could not discharge the constable without conviction even if the consequences were the constable lost his job.

He ordered him to do 200 hours' community work and pay $1500 to Maululu Vaoese.

Defence lawyer Noel Sainsbury said the constable had suffered the loss of a friend the day before and should not have been on duty.

- NZPA