Constable Bradley Moyle, Who Shoved, Floored and Punched Small 20 Year Old Girl in the Face, Appears in Court
A SAPOL cop who punched a small woman in the face during her arrest has agreed one of his strikes may have been “unnecessary”, a court has heard.
Constable Bradley Moyle, 36, was captured on video shoving Kiara Beck, then throwing her to the ground and punching her in the face during an incident in the car park of Mount Gambier’s Trident Tyre Centre, across the road from Mac’s Hotel, after she had been denied entry into the pub.
Earlier in the evening Ms Beck had been ejected from the Commercial Hotel around 11.20pm after allegedly getting into an “altercation” with her partner Tyson Ratcliffe.
Constable Moyle came across Ms Beck in the parking lot of the Commercial Hotel following her ejection. Bodycam footage shows Ms Beck being forcibly taken to the ground during this interaction after she tried to kick approaching officers.
She was then taken to the Mount Gambier Hospital by an ambulance for a mental health assessment, but soon left and by 1.50am was trying to gain entry to Mac’s Hotel, prompting bouncers to call for police assistance, including Constable Moyle.
Still wearing her hospital admission bracelet, Ms Beck argued with police saying she wanted to go into the venue to search for her missing boyfriend and phone.
The court heard police were unable to drive Beck home in the back of the police car due to Covid-19 restrictions at the time so they called a taxi in hopes she would get in it and go home.
However, the court heard Beck refused to get into the taxi and “was making a lot of threats, including threatening to kill the taxi driver”.
Beck was clearly being difficult, no doubt due to her inebriated state. But the presumably sober Moyle’s behaviour was a whole other level of disgraceful, evincing an individual with serious anger management issues.
As the video above shows, even the other officers appear to be disturbed by his gratuitous violence, with one gasping in shock and trying to grab Moyle’s striking arm as he begins smashing Beck in the face, the other unsuccessfully trying to divert one of his strikes.
On Thursday, the court heard the footage of the interaction shows Constable Moyle “pointing a finger” in Ms Beck’s face as she stands and yells in front of the taxi’s open backdoor and sternly warns her to “shut up, get in the car and go home, or I’m going to arrest you for at disorderly behaviour”.
Moyle then forcefully shoves Beck with both hands, causing her to fall into the taxi’s back seat. When she kicks her feet outwards in response, he reaches into the taxi, grabs her, violently pulls her from the vehicle, tells her she’s under arrest, throws her to the ground and begins punching her in the face.
“The warning is good policing – where he oversteps is shoving her,” the prosecution said.
Neither the warning nor the shove were good policing. When giving his ‘warning’, Moyle can clearly be seen losing his composure and trying to outscream Beck. Not sure what they teach at police academy, but getting into yelling matches with drunk people makes about as much sense as trying to extinguish a fire with petrol.
“The shove is not allied with police power or the function of duty,” said the prosecutor.
Once on the ground, the court heard footage shows Ms Beck’s left arm gripping the collar of Constable Moyle’s uniform. One of the assisting officers can be heard telling Ms Beck to “stay down” and Moyle yells at her to “let go” before striking her twice in the face.
The court previously heard Constable Moyle admitted the second strike may have been “unnecessary” but the incident happened in seconds and he ceased striking Ms Beck once he realised she no longer held his shirt.
More likely he stopped hitting her because he realized even his fellow officers were appalled by his behaviour.
On Thursday prosecutors focused on the “the shove”.
“Count one (the shove) does not have the same complexity of counts two and three (the strikes),” the prosecution said.
“It’s hard to see how aggressively shoving (Ms Beck) into the taxi is a way of preventing a breach of the peace,” the prosecution said, when Magistrate Koula Kossiavelos posed that Constable Moyle was attempting to prevent such a breach.
“She had been aggressive during the night,” Ms Kossiavelos said.
“You don’t prevent a breach of the peace by shoving someone into a taxi,” the prosecution said.
“Police do not have the power to dictate how people go home and they are certainly not armed with the power to shove people into a taxi.”
Prosecutors said Constable Moyle had “lost control of his emotions and engaged in a physical altercation with a petite drunk woman of just 20-years-old, 50 kilos and under 5 feet tall”.
Moyle clearly has poor people and de-escalation skills. When Beck repeatedly asked officers to enter the hotel to find both her missing phone and boyfriend, Moyle abandons any attempt at tact and retorts “that’s not our job”, “what is wrong with you” and “you’re an idiot, a deadset idiot”.
Zero. That’s the number of drunks who have responded to such antagonism by exclaiming “you know what, you’re right, I’m being totally unreasonable! Thank you for helping me see the light! I’ll go home and sleep it off now!”
Due to technical difficulties during the proceedings, the bodycam footage was unable to be shown to the court.
The trial was adjourned to March or April where the magistrate and counsel can review the footage.
It remains to be seen whether Moyle is convicted for being a violent thug who hits small women when he doesn’t get his way, or whether his case eventuates in another farcical whitewash, as occurred with the recent and extremely smelly acquittal of violent SAPOL goon Aiden Allt.
Sources
Constable Bradley Moyle trying to avoid arresting drunk woman he allegedly shoved and punched in the face, court hears. The Advertiser.
Constable Bradley Moyle on trial over excessive force allegations. The Advertiser.
