6 days ago
Defence lawyer accuses retired police officer of 'playing cop' before alleged Geraldton axe attack
The lawyer for two men accused of attacking a retired police officer with an axe in country Western Australia has questioned the former officer's credibility and accused him of "playing cop".
Jack Seelander and Justin Troy Ernest Little allegedly assaulted former WA police sergeant Adrian Barker during a confrontation in Geraldton in March 2024.
The pair faced trial over three days in the Geraldton Magistrates Court this week.
The court heard Mr Barker was returning to his home in Wandina around 3am on March 17, 2024 when he passed a group of eight Aboriginal boys and men.
Under cross-examination by defence lawyer Lauren Roycroft, Mr Barker admitted he thought the group would "be trouble".
Mr Barker said once in his Wandina home, he sat near his front door, which was slightly ajar behind a locked flyscreen.
He initially said it was left open for the breeze, but later Mr Barker admitted it was because he thought the group would attempt to break into nearby houses.
Ms Roycroft put it to Mr Barker that he heard "a barely audible click", saw figures running away, then followed and confronted them.
However, Mr Barker said he confronted members of the group, including Mr Seelander and Mr Little, after they attempted to break into his house.
The confrontation saw Mr Barker allegedly hit Mr Little in the back of the head, knocking him to the ground.
After initially running away, the court heard members of the group attacked Mr Barker, with Mr Little allegedly hitting him in the side of the face with an axe before fleeing the scene.
In his closing statement on Wednesday, police prosecutor Sergeant Thomas Potts said the group had "fairly laid into Barker with a pick to the back" without being provoked.
Sergeant Potts said Mr Barker "pre-emptively" struck Mr Little due to his path to flee being blocked by other members of the group.
He said Mr Barker's decision to confront the group was honed by his 15 years of experience as a WA police officer.
But the defence questioned Mr Barker's conduct, arguing he had pre-emptively formed "a negative view" of the group without cause.
"There is a wealth of evidence that Mr Barker was the aggressor," Ms Roycroft told the court.
She pointed to Mr Barker's inconsistent accounts of the incident, and his conduct immediately after the attack, as detrimental to his credibility as a witness.
The court was told that after the incident, Mr Barker got into his car, pursued a car carrying a group of Aboriginal people unconnected to the attack at speed, flashed his headlights, pulled them over, and interrogated them at the side of the road.
When the car's occupants asked if he was a police officer, Mr Barker answered "yep".
Magistrate Matthew Walton reserved his decision, telling the court the matters were difficult, with "complexities often forgotten" in closing statements.
He agreed that Mr Barker was "getting brutalised" by people in the group.
The matter will return to court next month for the verdict.
