THE SPLENDORS OF AUSTRALIAN LAW ENFORCEMENT

Via Australian Politics. Three current reports below

Police thugs hurt elderly Asian lady

TWO police officers handcuffed a 64-year-old pensioner, threw her to the ground and then searched inside her bra and underpants on a busy suburban road in the mistaken belief she was a drug dealer. The ordeal left an ailing Leentje McDonald, of Maroubra, in hospital and severely traumatised. But she did not receive an apology from police. Rather, she has been charged with assaulting an officer.

While it is unusual for a pensioner to be mistaken for a 40-year-old drug dealer, as was the case here, civil libertarians say such aggressive searches, and the charging of people for assault or resisting arrest if no drugs are found, are a common and disturbing feature of modern policing.

In her case, Ms McDonald resisted the intrusive search because longstanding nerve damage in her right shoulder meant she was in excruciating pain when the two police officers handcuffed her during the full body search on Maroubra Road. "I started screaming, screaming so loud because it was extremely painful. It was so painful I could feel it in my spine. I had a blackout. I thought I was going to die from a heart attack," Ms McDonald told the Herald at her small Department of Housing flat, where she lives alone.

October 18 had began like any other pension day. Ms McDonald went to the shops to buy some ingredients for a "nice dinner" and stepped into the Maroubra Junction Hotel to play the pokies for a few minutes while she waited for her bus. As she left the hotel, two plainclothes police officers, a man and a woman, approached. "They said, 'Are you dealing drugs.' I said, 'No, never in my life. I don't even like smoking,' " she said. Ms McDonald says the two officers said they were looking for an Asian woman in her 40s.

"I said, 'You must have a mistaken identity. I have never done this in my life. I'm 64, a grandmother of six, please.' I said, 'You can't search me like this on a busy road. I beg your pardon, no.' "

The police grabbed her bag, finding only her wallet, some bills and two cans of coconut cream. But they were not satisfied. While Maroubra police station was directly across the road, about 20 metres away, the officers moved to handcuff and search her on the street. "I said, 'Please don't do this, I have a frozen shoulder,' " Ms McDonald said. In terrible pain, she lashed out, scratching one of the officers. They finished handcuffing her and threw her to the ground.

"They did a full body search. They put their hands inside my bra, inside my pants. I said, 'My God. Why is this happening to me?' Then the officer, she says to me, 'Stand up.' But I couldn't stand up. I was crying. Then they said, 'Put your shoes on.' My handbag was everywhere, my glasses, my coconut cream. "They had no drugs, no nothing. But they arrested me and put me in the truck. They take me to Maroubra police station. That's just across the road!"

The commotion drew a large crowd of onlookers, intensifying Ms McDonald's humiliation. One witness, Josephine Chen, who worked at a nearby photo studio, said: "Everybody stopped to look. "She kept screaming 'My shoulder, my shoulder' but the police kept ignoring it. She was struggling to free her arm. She wasn't trying to hit anyone."

In the past 10 years, NSW police have been granted increased powers to search people, culminating in the decision last month of the Premier, Morris Iemma, to extend indefinitely the powers given to police to deal with the aftermath of the Cronulla riots. These powers mean police need only have a "suspicion" of illegality before they undertake an intrusive body search in an authorised area.

Cameron Murphy, of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, said: "We get hundreds of complaints about this, more than any other issue, particularly when it involves police sniffer dogs at train stations or outside nightclubs. "If you get upset about what is often a degrading and humiliating experience and they don't find drugs, the police charge you. Some people get what we call the trifecta: disobeying a lawful direction, resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer."

A police spokesman from Eastern Beaches command, Chief Inspector David McBeath, would not comment before Ms McDonald's scheduled appearance at Waverley Local Court on December 19. However, he said police would take into account any comments from the magistrate before determining if any action would be taken against the officers.

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Only two years for police rapists

THE young woman was terrified. Already having had a rough night on a bunk in the Maroochydore Watch-house she was roused by a buzzer going off in her cell at 2.45am and the voice of the watch-house chief, Sgt Zane Slingsby, telling her there was "some paperwork" that needed doing.

Earlier, Slingsby's junior, Sen-Constable Peter Anthony Buxton, had taken her from her cell and into the vehicle holding bay of the watch-house, where there was a security camera blind spot, and had forced her to expose her breasts. Later during a shift change, Buxton had again taken her from her cell, saying she had to have a photo taken. Slingsby was in the garage when she arrived and Buxton had left her alone with him. "He (Slingsby) said 'you're the one who's going to show us your tits for cigarettes'," the woman later told investigators. Scared, she had done as she was told - allowing Slingsby to rub her breasts - and then she had been taken back to her cell by Buxton.

But it was just Slingsby on his own when he called her before 3am, and took her into the vehicle bay, closing and locking the door behind him. Putting on some bravado she asked him: "Do you do this to all the girls?" Slingsby replied with a smile: "No, only the ones we can tell have got good breasts." Then, as she shivered with fear, he fondled and groped her as well as putting his hands down the front of her pants - ignoring her frightened pleas to be left alone.

That feeling of helplessness, of not being believed if they did complain - was a common thread repeated in the statements of all three women molested by Slingsby, and the six women Buxton attacked over several months in 2005, when the two were on duty at Maroochydore watch-house.

Buxton, 54, was sentenced to six years' jail in July for his role, after pleading guilty to 24 charges of sexually assaulting women prisoners including one count of rape. He will be eligible for parole after two years.

And this week the book was finally closed on the sordid affair when Slingsby, 51, was sentenced to four years' jail on 10 charges, suspended after serving two years. The charges included sexual assault, common assault, procuring a sexual act by intimidation and attempting to procure a sexual act by intimidation.

Their crimes were uncovered after a painstaking eight-month investigation by the Police Ethical Standards Command after one of the women confided in a correctional centre nurse.

Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson described the actions of the two police officers as "disgraceful and an abuse of authority and trust". Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Paul Rutledge said the offences had been "persistent, premeditated and calculated". "This was no fleeting succumbing to passing temptation," he said during Buxton's sentencing. "This was a clear pattern of control over female prisoners. "If you were a female going in to that watch-house while that officer was on duty, there was an almost one in 10 chance you would be interfered with."

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Your government will protect you

A VIOLENT rapist has been released from jail three years short of his maximum term. Described by one police officer as the most unpredictable and vengeful criminal he has ever dealt with, Antonio Christopher Loguancio, 34, has been granted early release despite a shocking history of violence in and out of jail. Nicknamed "Mad Dog", Loguancio was jailed for a maximum 12 years in December 1998 for a string of brutal attacks and depraved rapes committed over 19 months.

His attacks ranged from punching, kicking and slashing his female victim to beating her with wood, shooting arrows at her and choking her with a belt. One time, while armed with a pump-action shotgun, he forced her to her knees and pulled her head back by her hair while telling her she was dead.

Some of Loguancio's rapes were so sickening the Herald Sun has chosen not to publish details. During his trial, a doctor said of the victim: "She exhibited multiple bruising . . . almost all across her body."

Despite his shocking history, the Victorian Adult Parole Board says Loguancio's early supervised release is in the interests of the community. "Releasing offenders on parole allows the board to impose a strict supervision regime and other conditions to support the reintegration of the offender into the community, and to minimise the risk of recidivism," parole board general manager David Provan said in a statement.

Friends of Loguancio's victim now fear for her and other women who may cross his path. Loguancio already had a long list of convictions when sentenced in 1998 on 30 counts including six of rape, five of intentionally causing injury, four of making threats to kill and 12 of common assault. At the time he was sentenced he was already serving a jail term.

Loguancio's lawyer, James Montgomery, tried to explain his client's pathological violence in court. "He recalls in his childhood being punched, kicked and strapped often by his father," Mr Montgomery said. "He recalls on one occasion his father pulled a gun on him. "His father had the view that . . . violence solved everything."

Judge Mervyn Kimm described Loguancio's attacks as "depraved, appalling and quite callous". "I am quite satisfied that you have no remorse whatsoever," Judge Kimm said when sentencing him. Court of Appeal judge Frank Callaway went further. "I do not propose to summarise the evidence of the 30 offences of which the applicant was convicted," Judge Callaway said. "Some of them were of such a depraved character that a description in a judgment that will go on the internet and may be reported would be contrary to public morals."

While in jail Loguancio was able to complete engineering and hospitality courses. He served just five months more than his minimum term of 8 1/2 years.

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