Four police sued over 'kicking'

A man is suing four South Auckland police officers after losing his left testicle which he says swelled to the size of a rugby ball following an alleged brutal arrest.

Paul Pure is suing constables Rupert Friend, Aaron George, Michael Carter, Stephen Bass and the Attorney-General, alleging the officers used excessive force when they arrested him at his estranged wife's Manurewa home on August 12, 2000.

Mr Pure told Judge Josephine Bouchier in the Auckland District Court yesterday that the constables pepper-sprayed him, beat him about the head and shoulders with a torch, tied his hands and feet before dragging him out of his wife Grace's house and dumping him on the concrete where he was kicked in the testicles by a plain-clothes police officer.

Mr Pure's lawyer Nicolette Levy said Mr Pure and his wife had been drinking vodka at his home before Mrs Pure left to go to her house.

When she did not return he went to her home where he was aggressive, abusing her children and she went to neighbours to call police.

"I rang the police because I was scared for my children but the way they [police] did it was just not the way police should do it, it was just brutal," Mrs Pure told defence counsel Ross Burns.

Mrs Pure told the court that when her husband was outside she saw a plain-clothes officer walk to where her husband was lying and say, "This is how you do it," before kicking him.

Mr Pure was taken to the Papakura police station, where he says he was slipping in and out of consciousness and was woken up on the floor of a cell being hosed down by the officers who were laughing at him.

He said he asked to go to the toilet and saw his left testicle had swollen to the size of a rugby ball and started screaming for a doctor.

Dr Dexter Loos saw Mr Pure at 5.30am on August 13 and prescribed antibiotics and paracetamol. He said the testicle had swollen to twice its normal size, an injury consistent with trauma.

Mr Pure says police never got him antibiotics or gave him pain relief. He demanded to see the doctor again, who came at 1.30pm and Mr Pure was taken to Auckland Hospital at 6pm.

In written evidence Russell McIlroy said Mr Pure's testicle was removed on September 28, 2000. A clot in it was the result of previous trauma consistent with some sort of force or blow.

The case is expected to run until tomorrow, with witnesses being called for the four defendants, including former South Auckland Senior Sergeant Anthony Solomona, who in March was found guilty of assaulting a teenager at a Manurewa service station. Mr Solomona was working in the watchhouse when Mr Pure was brought into the station.