NT: Cop bashed drunk and then tried to destroy evidence: court

AAP General News (Australia)
04-09-2008
NT: Cop bashed drunk and then tried to destroy evidence: court

By Tara Ravens

DARWIN, April 9 AAP - A drunk taken into custody and handcuffed was kicked repeatedly
by a police officer who then tried to destroy a video of the bashing, a Northern Territory
court has heard.

Sergeant Michael James Bourke, 34, has been charged with three counts of aggravated
assault and one count of attempting to destroy evidence.

The Supreme Court in Darwin today heard Bourke was the senior officer in charge of
Tennant Creek police station on November 25, 2006.

About 2pm he "gloved up" before heading to the cells where he allegedly assaulted Graham
Kurnoth, 31, who had been taken into protective custody to sober up earlier that day.

"Mr Kurnoth was playing up, playing up big time," crown prosecutor John Lawrence said
of the Alice Springs local, who was employed in an Aboriginal work-for-the-dole scheme.

"His conduct in any man's language was rude and abusive ... a veritable angry ant."

Mr Lawrence said Mr Kurnoth was flung to the floor and handcuffed with his hands behind
his back after he hit back at Bourke, who had punched him in the head.

"Bourke is seen to kick Mr Kurnoth to the head while he is lying on his stomach with
his hand behind his back," he told the court.

As the drunken Mr Kurnoth was then dragged to another cell, the sergeant kicked his
face in a corridor and then again in the cell.

After the attack, the police officer allegedly attempted to tape over video footage
of the incident.

"The tape was stopped, rewound and play-pressed again," Mr Lawrence said, adding that
it was seized by a junior officer before the evidence was damaged.

Mr Kurnoth admitted to the court that he had been drunk and "swearing badly".

He said the sergeant had asked him to be quiet and "step back" from the door of the cell.

"He was just talking to me and then I think that he tried to hit me, punched me," he said.

"Then I was grabbed down on my front belly, handcuffed ... I was slammed against the
cell door on my side, dragged out and kicked in the head area."

"Were you bleeding?" Mr Lawrence asked.

"Yes," he replied.

"Where?"

"The mouth, the head."

Mr Kurnoth said he had been "jumping on the counter and stealing grog" shortly before
police picked him up.

Defence Lawyer Peter Elliott told the court he had been taken into protective custody
more than a hundred times.

"You would get angry at police most times they picked you up and you would fight the
police a lot, you would spit at the police, you would punch the police," Mr Elliott said.

Almost six hours after Mr Kurnoth was allegedly bashed, police took him to Tennant
Creek Hospital to treat an abrasion on his face.

He told a doctor there a police officer had kicked him while he was handcuffed and
on his hands and knees.

Mr Kurnoth fled the hospital before the doctor could treat him.

The trial before Justice Dean Mildren continues.

AAP tr/imc/de

KEYWORD: BOURKE NIGHTLEAD

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