The detective who charged a Broome man who cable-tied three young Indigenous children has told a court he still believes that the man executed a legal citizen’s arrest.
Matej Radelic appeared in the Broome Magistrates Court on Thursday to face three counts of aggravated common assault. Those charges related to an incident in March this year in which he bound the hands of three children – aged six, seven and eight – after he caught them playing in the pool of the vacant property next to his Broome home.
Footage of the incident, showing two of the children crying, caused widespread outrage and sparked fears of race riots in a town that has been struggling with increased levels of crime and anti-social behaviour in recent years.
The footage was seen around the world, with WA Premier Roger Cook labelling the images “confronting”, “disturbing” and “distressing”. The Commissioner for Children and Young People WA, Jacqueline McGowan-Jones, issued a statement saying she was “appalled” by the incident, while more than $5000 was raised to buy a pool for the family.
Additional police were deployed to the Kimberley town in the wake of the incident, given the concerns about inflamed community tensions.
Mr Radelic was represented by Perth defence lawyer Seamus Rafferty SC.
Detective Senior Sergeant Jarrad Collins was the only witness called to testify during Mr Radelic’s trial. Under cross-examination, Sergeant Collins confirmed he had written a report on the evening of the incident describing how Mr Radelic had performed a “legal citizen’s arrest”.
Asked by Mr Rafferty if he still believed that to be the case, Mr Collins replied: “Yes”.
That was seized upon by Mr Rafferty in his closing address.
“You had an officer give evidence under oath that this was a lawful arrest. God knows how he charged him after that,” Mr Rafferty said.
The court was shown body-worn camera footage from the immediate aftermath of the incident, in which Mr Radelic spoke to officers about his frustrations with having had his properties repeatedly targeted.
He said there had been four incidents at the properties in the months leading up to the March incident, including multiple cases in which bricks and pavers from the pool area were used to smash sliding doors and windows.
He said the repairs had cost him more than $10,000.
In the footage, Mr Radelic acknowledged he had tied up the children and said he took responsibility if he had done something wrong. “What would you do? If I let them go, there’s not going to be any consequences at all,” he said.
“I’m ready to take the consequences, if I need to go to jail I will … This is just ridiculous, who is going to protect me?”
He could be seen describing his frustrations about what he saw as a lack of action taken by police to apprehend the young offenders who had previously targeted his property. “I’m paying for it all the time,” he could be heard saying.
“This happened. Are they going to pay for this? Are they going to take their Centrelink payments at all?
“Who is going to pay for it?”
He told police that while waiting for them to arrive, he had been threatened by another boy with a large knife, had stones thrown at him, and had his car kicked.
The court heard Mr Radelic immediately called triple-0 after detaining the children.
While Mr Radelic’s property was a five-minute drive from the Broome police station, officers did not arrive for 37 minutes.
Mr Rafferty produced documents showing police had made the incident a “priority 3” matter, meaning it was prioritised behind other incidents deemed to need more urgent attention.
Mr Rafferty said the delay in police attending was by no means the fault of Mr Radelic, who had performed his duties as required under a citizen’s arrest by informing police of the matter as soon as possible.
Asked by Mr Rafferty if it was “simply not good enough” that police didn’t arrive at the property sooner, Sergeant Collins said: “I would have liked for us to have gotten there earlier.”
Police prosecutor Micheal Gregg told the court that there were other options available to Mr Radelic, noting that the children were already compliant before he applied the cable ties. “The circumstances simply weren’t there to justify the force,” he said.
Magistrate Deen Potter reserved his decision until October.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/broome-cable-tie-incident-was-a-lawful-c...I blame the parents. As I would if these were white kids. But that's wacist.
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