A FORMER police officer charged with perjury and assaulting a woman in the police cells in Armidale has taken the stand in court.
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Nigel Douglas Kentish, a former senior constable with New England police, has denied all nine charges against him, including assault occasioning actual bodily harm, fabricating evidence with intent to mislead a judicial tribunal, making false statements on oath amounting to perjury and giving false evidence at a hearing before a commission.
On the second day of a hearing on the charges in Armidale Local Court, Kentish took the stand.
The court heard the former Armidale-based officer has had serious health issues including “bleeds on the brain” which he said was pressing down into his spinal cord.
”I had to learn to walk around again, get my balance back,” he told the court.
“My left side is numb. I'm not good on dates.”
The Police Integrity Commission (PIC) alleges Kentish assaulted Armidale woman Janelle Boekeman on September 26, 2009, causing actually bodily harm at Armidale Police Station.
The former officer was also accused of fabricating false evidence in parts of an official police statement on the incident, with intent to mislead the Armidale Local Court in proceedings in October, 2010.
Kentish was also charged with making the false statements under oath on July 23, 2010, at Armidale.
Kentish, who joined the force in 1979, was charged by PIC investigators in December, 2015, with the offences that allegedly occurred while he and another officer were both on duty in 2009.
He told the court on Tuesday that Ms Boekeman “had something in her back pocket … I was worried it was something she could use to hurt herself or us”.
Kentish said she “refused to be searched” and the court heard Ms Boekeman said she didn’t want Kentish to search her.
He said he tried to explain but “it came to the point where it wasn’t going to happen”.
“I stepped in and grabbed her by the shoulder, she moved back which put me off balance and I pretty well fell on top of her,” Kentish told the court.
I stepped in and grabbed her by the shoulder, she moved back which put me off balance and I pretty well fell on top of her.
- Nigel Kentish
“My glasses had fallen off because she flicked them off my head.”
He said he “felt her legs come up between my legs” before another officer said “watch your nuts”.
“She hit me in the groin area, the testicles,” Kentish told the court, adding it “was pain only a man can feel”.
I know I hit her and I said, ‘don’t hit me, don’t kick me.
- Nigel Kentish
“I know I hit her and I said, ‘don’t hit me, don’t kick me”.
When questioned, Kentish said he hit Ms Boekeman in the head.
“I believe I hit her with an open palm,” he said.
“I only believe I struck her twice.”
When questioned about striking the woman, Kentish later admitted in his evidence on Tuesday that he punched her. The prosecution maintains Kentish said he punched her in an original statement, and then changed his story to justify his actions.
Kentish said Ms Boekeman stopped struggling and they completed the search and removed the items from her back pocket which he believed were tissues.
The court has already heard from the alleged victim of the assault.
The hearing continues.
Witness Sergeant Anthony Kirk was charged with of fabricating false evidence with intent to mislead a judicial tribunal as well as making a false statement on oath amounting to perjury.
He was initially found guilty at a hearing in Armidale in September, last year, but was then acquitted of both charges on appeal in a Sydney court by Acting Judge Colin Charteris.
