Senior constable Lindsay Smith, aka "Red" Smith, was found not guilty on three counts of assault with a weapon. File photo / Andrew Warner
Senior constable Lindsay Smith, aka "Red" Smith, was found not guilty on three counts of assault with a weapon. File photo / Andrew Warner
As Andrew lay face down in Tauranga’s court cells, he felt nearly 4000 volts of electricity course through his body for the third time as a group of police and guards looked on.
He had never even been to prison before.
“Graphic” video of the incident was dissected in minute detail by a jury in the Tauranga District Court in July, who watched as Senior Constable Lindsay “Red” Smith tasered him three times in the space of less than 30 seconds.
The jury found Smith not guilty on three counts of assault with a weapon.
Despite the jury’s decision, Smith - once celebrated for his service to the community - now faces an employment investigation for the February 2019 event.
Smith was once nominated for the Bay of Plenty Times Person of the Year award for his involvement in the community, and was earlier praised for his project Trips with Red and Z, where he took groups of older men out for field trips. He is also known for mentoring families with meth-addicted members.
His complainant, meanwhile, was a former IT worker who had fallen under the Mental Health Act 17 years ago following a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder.
Andrew, who doesn’t want his full name used, has spoken out against the verdict, saying he believed it was “unfair” and “unjust”, and that Smith’s lawyer played heavily on his mental illness as justification for the tasering.
He had been taken into custody over a bail issue, after an altercation with a security guard at a nearby mall.
Andrew said he had been sleeping outside the mall waiting for it to open, but once it did the guard would not let him inside. They pushed each other, and that was the end of the matter, he said. The case was later thrown out of court.
Smith was on cell duty the day of the tasering, the Monday following Andrew’s arrest.
“I was unhappy being in the cell. I was in there with a sex offender and a gang member and I’ve never been in prison before,” Andrew told the Herald.
The pair had already had one run-in when Andrew, frustrated at being in custody, tried to follow another prisoner out of the cell. They wrestled briefly before Smith forced Andrew back into the cell and shut the door.
A short while later, Smith walked through the cell door, immediately pointing a taser at Andrew. He told him he was being transferred, but Andrew became argumentative and stood up, walking towards Smith.
Lindsay "Red" Smith.
Video from the cell and also from the taser, which the Herald has viewed, shows Smith tasering Andrew as he stands surrounded by four colleagues - a mixture of three Corrections officers and the junior cop.
Andrew falls to the ground with an open mouth and locked-up limbs. Smith then shoots the second taser cartridge as he lies on the floor. Andrew then rolls on to his stomach as ordered before Smith tasers him a third time using the arc button function on the taser.
The arc function allows the user to send another electrical charge through the prongs that have already been shot.
The tasering happened within a space of less than 30 seconds, with about 10 seconds between each use of the taser.
“He shoots me three times, gives me three buzzes with the electrical thing,” Andrew said. “I couldn’t believe that he was buzzing it.
“I wasn’t threatening the officers when they came in. He decided just to tase me,” Andrew claimed.
Describing the experience as “very painful”, Andrew believed it was also dangerous as he nearly hit his head on the metal bench in the cell.
He believed Smith was a “mean guy, not very nice”.
At trial, Smith’s defence was that he believed he was justified in tasering Andrew for safety reasons and believed he could be stronger than he appeared. He cited Andrew’s mental health issues as a risk factor.
“It really killed the whole case, unfortunately,” Andrew said.
The Herald applied to the Tauranga District Court for a copy of the tasering video as well as a transcript from the trial.
At a hearing to argue the application, Smith’s lawyer Rachael Adams said Andrew was “extremely unwell” and the footage showed an “extremely degrading and painful moment”.
Judge Bill Lawson declined the application for the “graphic” video.
“Viewed in isolation without appropriate context [it] can leave an unbalanced and inappropriate impression of the overall case,” he said in his written decision.
“Publishing the CCTV footage even if it is balanced with material from the transcript will likely result in unfair focus on the footage.”
Judge Lawson also declined the application for the transcript but did not provide reasons aside from noting media could have attended the trial at the time it was happening.
A police spokeswoman told the Herald the matter was subject to an “ongoing employment investigation”.
“We are not able to comment further except to say that the officer remains working for the New Zealand Police however is not on frontline duties,” she said.
