Victorian police busted bashing hoon driver in Mansfield

What the cops did was of course improper but I am rather glad they knocked the defiance out of these louts. They would have done a lot more good for the community than the pissweak sentences handed down by our legal system. I think that the sentences imposed were appropriately lenient

VIDEO footage has revealed the ferocity of a police attack on a hoon driver who did burnouts in front of a town cop shop. The images, captured by a dashboard camera in a police car, show an officer kicking and bashing the driver with a baton.

David Bray, 32, and his passenger, Ryan Boyd, 19, left smoking rubber outside Mansfield police station on May 2. A court hearing was told police later stopped them on a back road and said: "Do you think you run this town? We do."

Senior Constables Paul Bell and David Farrell are then alleged to have attacked the men.

One was kicked and hit with the baton and the other was punched and slapped.

Sen-Constable Bell, who is suspended without pay, was found guilty in Wangaratta Magistrates' Court yesterday of charges including intentionally causing injury and unlawful assault. He was given a 12-month supervised community-based order and told to perform 60 hours of unpaid community service.

Farrell, who resigned from the police force in October, pleaded guilty last month to intentionally causing injury and was put on a 12-month community-based order, without conviction.

Sen-Constable Bell's solicitor, Bernie Balmer, said the officers had been frustrated at the road antics of the men they intercepted.

"People will be in two camps." he said. "Some will say they got their right whack; some will say people can't be treated like that. Out of frustration, they've acted the way they have."

Mr Balmer said one of the officers had previously been shot at, and they had attended road deaths and suicides.

Victoria Police declined to comment because of the 28-day appeal period available to Sen-Constable Bell.

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