Assault Charge Against Ex-Cop Andrew Allan Jaunay Mysteriously Dropped

As part of the mandate to let cops get away with gratuitous violence, balding bully and former SAPOL goon Andrew Allan Jaunay recently had his assault charge mysteriously dropped.

Juanay has cost the taxpayers of South Australia tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars after he and former sidekick Sean Hobbs were charged with aggravated assault causing harm after accosting and attacking Matthew Odgers in 2013.

Juanay was convicted of the assault in 2021 and sentenced in 2022, but appealed the decision. In a shock move, the Director of Public Prosecutions has now dropped the case entirely, using the excuse that “it is no longer in the public interest to prosecute the matter.”

The matter has dragged on for eleven years, at the expense of taxpayers – who not only had to pay for Juanay’s salary but the subsequent legal circus that ensued after he assaulted Odgers and refused to take responsibility for his actions.

The assault occurred in Whyalla when the slightly-built Odgers was only 17 years old.

Upon sighting Odgers, Juanay and Hobbs performed a “stop and search.” Giving evidence, Odgers said he was under a court-enforced curfew and “two minutes from home” when he was stopped by the officers. He said the duo found a drug pipe, belonging to his friend, in his possession before he asked if he could go.

“The bald officer (Juanay) hit me and said ‘you can f—ing leave when I tell you to leave,” Odgers told the court.

“I was intimidated, in shock, didn’t understand the situation … I was scared.”

“The bald officer said ‘you think you’re tough?’ and struck me with the back of his hand with enough force to knock me back and roll on to the ground.”

Hobbs allegedly joined Juanay in the assault when he “put his hand around my throat and was yelling at me, telling me to shut up … I could breathe but I could barely talk.”

Odgers’ counsel told the court the boy was “lifted off the ground and slammed down” and Hobbs continued to “squeeze and choke” him, swearing at him and telling him to “shut his mouth”.

Odgers’ allegations were strongly supported by a recording on his telephone that captured Juanay, an antisocial character of questionable intelligence, effectively admitting to the assault and brazenly boasting that he and Hobbs would lie about what happened.

The audio recording of Juanay’s threats to Odgers and his highly unprofessional interaction with the boy’s mother.

“We’ll Say We Didn’t Do It”

“Now if you want to tell your mum that we f***ing belted you, guess what, go right ahead. And then you’d work out we’d be liars, because we’ll say we didn’t do it, alright?” said Jaunay.

“Your choice, you want to be a big man and play with the big boys, you can play … just remember I ain’t going anywhere, pal … I’m an old man, I’ll hunt you down.”

What a clown.

After receiving a panicked call from her son, Ms Odgers rushed in her car to retrieve him. Upon arriving at the scene, she immediately noticed signs of assault, including marks on his face.

Ms Odgers questioned the officers as to what happened and asked for their names. Audio recording of the incident (see below) showed her demeanour to be reasonable and non-aggressive, yet Juanay was rude and disrepectful in return.

Both officers failed to state their names despite her repeated requests.

“If you believe that I’m assaulting people on the side of the road, that I would do that to a child in the street, you must have rocks in your head,” the arrogant Juanay told Ms Odgers.

Ms Odgers told the court she found this “quite insulting and unprofessional … I said ‘looking at Matthew, yes, I do believe him’ because I could see he had marks on his face and was quite shaken up.”

Self-confessed liar and angry old man, Andrew Allan Jaunay, the paunchy, greying, balding ex-cop who assaulted a skinny teenager, threatened to stalk him, and spoke like a disrepectful jerk to the boy’s mother.

Ms Odgers told the court that Jaunay was “aggressive, quite adrenaline-pumped” and “quite erratic” after knocking her son to the ground. “When I pulled up in my car, he (Jaunay) aggressively pushed a piece of paper through my window saying ‘there’s no need to get out of the car, you need to sign this, we just have to talk to Matthew’,” she said.

“He was quite adrenaline-pumped, breathing heavily and quite erratic.”

As is par for the course with the hopelessly corrupt SAPOL, both officers flatly denied the assault. Unfortunately for them, Odgers was able to reach into his pocket and activate his phone which captured audio footage of the aftermath.

The audio footage was dominated by Juanay’s voice, allowing Hobbs to be acquitted of the charge, but Juanay was convicted in November 2021.

Unlike Juanay, Sean Hobbs was acquitted and escaped punishment for the 2013 assault on Odgers.

Appearing at the Elizabeth Magistrates Court in March 2022, Jaunay received a three-month suspended jail term, subject to a one-year good behaviour bond.

The very lenient sentence was attained after Juanay pulled a Norman Hoy, miraculously transforming from loud-mouthed tough guy in the street to poor vulnerable little victim in court.

Jaunay’s lawyer submitted two psychologists’ reports to the court. Magistrate Ben Sale said the reports indicated Jaunay was suffering from PTSD before the incident due to “persistent traumatic events working as a police officer.”

“(The doctor) says work-related stressors including being attacked and beaten, confrontations with angry and violent offenders on your own and a lack of support as you perceived it from South Australia Police were, and are, causative of your symptoms,” Sale said.

This raises some important questions:

Why was an individual with PTSD and doubtful mental health allowed to roam the streets with a gun, baton, taser and pepper spray?

How did Juanay’s alleged PTSD justify taunting and physically assaulting a skinny, non-threatening, unarmed and lone teenager?

If Juanay felt the need to lash out because of PTSD, why did he choose a skinny teenager who posed little threat to him as opposed to, say, a muscular outlaw biker?

Does Juanay really suffer PTSD or is he, like so many of his SAPOL colleagues, simply a gutless, anti-social bully?

In a May Adelaide Magistrates Court hearing, the 11-year legal saga was brought to a close when a prosecutor withdrew the aggravated assault charge against Jaunay.

He told Magistrate Justin Wickens that, after the Supreme Court overturned Jaunay’s conviction and ordered a retrial, the matter had been “under consideration”.

“Your Honour may recall that, on the last occasion, this matter was adjourned to enable the Director of Public Prosecutions to consider fresh material provided by defence,” he said.

“The Director has considered that material and has determined it is no longer in the public interest to prosecute the matter.”

“In those circumstances, we proposed to withdraw the charge.”

Note that the charges were not being dropped because Juanay is innocent – the audio footage strongly contradicts that unlikely claim. The DPP has simply decided that holding thuggish police officers who assault skinny, bespectacled teenagers “is no longer in the public interest.”

How many members of the public were consulted and asked if this decision was or was not in their interest?

Zero.

And so yet another SAPOL goon gets off scot-free after an unwarranted physical assault that served no purpose except to bolster his own pathetic ego.