A former Tasmanian police officer who assaulted a man in the middle of a suburban street in broad daylight has been handed a suspended sentence and community work orders.
In February, a Supreme Court jury found Todd Barry Apted, 52, guilty of assault and perverting the course of justice.
The off-duty police officer got into a fight with then-24-year-old Juma Obeid in the suburb of Newnham in August 2020.
During the trial, the jury was shown CCTV of the altercation, showing Apted yelling at Mr Obeid, before punching him in the face.
Mr Obeid is seen to fall to the ground and Apted stood over him, continuing to yell.
"You picked the wrong c**t mate. I'm a police officer," Apted was heard saying in the video.
"You're police?" Mr Obeid replied.
"You're too f**king right I'm police," Apted replied.
Three weeks later, in an interview with Tasmania Police Internal Investigations that was played to the jury, Apted said he was defending himself because Mr Obeid had a knife, something Mr Obeid denied.
Justice Robert Pearce handed Apted a six-month suspended sentence and ordered he do 84 hours of community service for perverting the course of justice.
He was also fined $1,500 on the assault charge.
Justice Pearce said the fact Apted was a police officer at the time further aggravated the perversion charge.
"The community should be able to expect police officers to uphold the law, not actively undermine it," he told the court.
'Did not act defensively at all'
In sentencing, Justice Pearce said claims that Apted was defending himself were "untruths".
"You did not act defensively at all. There was nothing stopping you from simply driving away," he said.
In the trial, Apted testified he had received a call from his teenage son after Mr Obeid yelled at his son earlier in the afternoon and punched the side of his son's car.
Justice Pearce accepted that, while that interaction would have been distressing, it was "a relatively trivial incident" that didn't justify Apted becoming involved.
In the ensuing fight between Apted and Mr Obeid, Apted sustained serious facial injuries, while Mr Obeid received only minor injuries.
PTSD contributed to offending
Apted's lawyer, Grant Tucker, tendered a psychiatric report that found Apted was suffering from ongoing post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of his long policing career.
That included multiple hospital stays and a suicide attempt in 2022.
Justice Pearce accepted Apted's mental health contributed to "hyper vigilance for perceived threats", including the assault.
However, he said, it did not apply to the perverting the course of justice charge, which he considered "more serious".
The court was told that Apted, as stated in his psychiatric report, had resigned from the police force because the severity of his PTSD "permanently prevents him from returning to policing, irrespective of the trial".
Apted's suspended sentence includes conditions that he does not leave the state without permission from a probation officer — and that he not commit any offences punishable by imprisonment — for two years.
