A Melbourne doctor claims police threw her to the ground and punched
her in the head after she tried to help a barely conscious and bleeding
man who was surrounded by officers.
The Professional Standards Command is investigating the alleged assault
of Kim Proudlove, who says she was punched and thrown by police when
trying to help an injured man in Melbourne's CBD.
The doctor says police then attempted to cover up the assault.
Kim
Proudlove, a slightly built stepmother of three who specialises in
helping people with brain injuries, has spoken publicly for the first
time about her encounter with police in Melbourne's CBD in April last
year.
It comes after a joint investigation by
The Age and ABC's
7.30 program revealed two other cases of alleged police brutality.
The first involved the
wrongful arrest of an Aboriginal teenager, who claims he was handcuffed, thrown into a wooden fence and capsicum sprayed. The teenager says a policeman used water from a dog bowl to wash the capsicum spray from his face.
The second involved a
policeman
who kept his job and rank after slapping a shirtless, drunk disability
pensioner in the head and hurling him to the ground in Geelong police
station.
Dr Proudlove does not fit the profile of the vulnerable Victorians who are more likely to report a violent run-in with police.
Dr Kim Proudlove went to help an injured man in Flinders Lane. But she claims police turned on her.
Credit:Paul Jeffers
She is an experienced doctor with a track record of helping people in need, including those badly injured in traffic accidents.
Her
confrontation with police began just after 9pm on April 22 in Flinders
Lane when she noticed a man lying in the fetal position in a doorway,
bleeding and barely conscious.
She says she approached the police
officers standing around the injured man and introduced herself as a
doctor able to provide aid.
“I was very concerned by the large
pool of fresh blood, and that no one was attending to him,” she said.
She claims the police told her to go away, that an ambulance had been
called and that the man’s injuries were self-inflicted.
"I told
them regardless of it being self-inflicted, the bleeding should be
stopped with basic first aid while waiting for an ambulance. He wasn’t
moving and wasn’t talking."
Dr Proudlove said after she insisted the man needed help, police
officers shoved her against a wall. She began filming the police on her
mobile phone and says one of the officers then attacked her.
“There was an older policeman that came
towards me, violently threw me to the ground, put my hands behind my
back, and repeatedly punched me in the head,” she has alleged.
“I
kept asking them to stop and told them that they were hurting me. I had a
police officer put his weight into the back of my knee which also was
very painful. They handcuffed me then picked me up and took me to a
police van and put me in the back.”
Police confiscated her phone
but returned it to her in the back of the van, where Dr Proudlove
discovered that the video she had recorded had been deleted. She filmed a
fresh video recording her version of events.
After officers dropped her home in a police van, Dr Proudlove's husband raced her to hospital.
“My
right ear needed tissue glue to close the wounds, I had a swollen and
bruised lip, I had a bump on my head, my knee was extremely sore causing
me to limp and I had multiple other bruises and abrasions all over my
body ... I was also in shock.”
Medical scans confirmed that Dr
Proudlove’s knee was badly damaged and she had suffered a fracture to
her leg and an anterior cruciate ligament rupture.
Dr Proudlove
complained to police’s Professional Standards Command about her
treatment within hours of her ordeal. After this, she was told she was
under criminal investigation for resisting arrest and could face serious
charges.
In December, police told Dr Proudlove she would not be prosecuted.
In a statement, a police spokeswoman said the case was the subject of "an active Professional Standards Command investigation".
"The senior constable and sergeant
involved in the alleged incident have been transferred to other duties
while the investigation is taking place. We are unable to provide any
further information as the investigation is ongoing," she said.
Dr Proudlove’s ordeal occurred just 19 days after
The Age exposed a major police brutality scandal.
In April 2018,
The Age revealed CCTV vision showing police officers assaulting a Melbourne disability pensioner during a mental health welfare check.
That
footage led to the charging of several officers along with widespread
calls for reform of the police complaints system, later backed by a
Victorian parliamentary committee. At the time, police denied that
reform was needed. The state government - wary of blow back from the
powerful police union - stalled on its own plans for an overhaul.
On Monday,
The Age
revealed that a Victorian policeman had retained his job and rank
despite being caught on CCTV footage assaulting a disability pensioner.
Images from CCTV footage showing the assault on 62-year-old Phil Dickson.
The
CCTV footage shows Sergeant Michael Cooke repeatedly slap 62-year-old
Phil Dickson in the back of the head and then throw him to the ground at
Geelong police station in January 2013.
Mr Dickson, who did
nothing to justify the use of force, was knocked unconscious and left
bleeding. He was hospitalised after the attack.
The disability
pensioner was arrested after police found him sitting in a parked car,
four times over the legal blood-alcohol limit for driving. His drinking
episode was prompted by his separation from his wife and, after his
arrest and charging, Mr Dickson pleaded guilty to drink-driving and
resisting arrest.
Sergeant Cooke pleaded guilty in the Geelong Magistrates Court to assaulting Mr Dickson.
The
police sergeant was initially facing a more serious criminal charge of
recklessly causing injury, but struck a plea deal with prosecutors to
have the charge reduced in return for a guilty plea with no conviction.
After
pleading guilty, Sergeant Cooke returned to the force from his paid
suspension and faced an internal police disciplinary hearing in 2015.
The
disciplinary hearing panel reviewed the damning CCTV footage of the
assault, but decided against giving Sergeant Cooke a serious penalty.
Instead, the panel placed him on a good behaviour order.
He remained a police officer until 2018, when he resigned.
Also among the latest disturbing cases is that of Tommy Lovett.
Mr
Lovett was a skinny, baby-faced 18-year-old, riding a scooter to his
grandmother’s home, when he was wrongly arrested in April 2016.
Police
had earlier issued a description over the radio for a 40-year-old
Aboriginal man with a goatee, who was wanted for stealing a vehicle and
ramming it into a police car.
Mr Lovett was also dark skinned, but he had no goatee and had committed no crime.
The Age
has uncovered police statements and diary notes that support Mr
Lovett’s claim that he was hurled into a fence and assaulted while
handcuffed.
But by the time officers were directed to continue the
search for the actual suspect, Mr Lovett’s body was bruised, grazed and
bleeding. A neighbour would later recall hearing him quietly sobbing on
the footpath.
Police vehemently denied the claims and an internal investigation found nothing wrong with Mr Lovett’s arrest.
