A police officer found guilty of assaulting a teenage boy has been spared a jail sentence.
Andrew Allan Jaunay was handed a three-month suspended sentence with a year-long good behaviour bond for the 2013 assault of then-17-year-old Matthew Odgers.
Jaunay was with other police officers when they stopped and searched Mr Odgers in a Whyalla Stuart street in October of that year.
The Elizabeth Magistrates Court heard Jaunay became angry with Mr Odgers's attitude towards police and struck him in the face with an open palm, knocking him to the ground.
In sentencing Jaunay, the magistrate told the court the assault was "a brief loss of control" that had caused the victim ongoing stress and shaken his faith in authority.
Magistrate Ben Sale said since the offence, Mr Odgers had suffered night terrors, low self-esteem and had trouble forming relationships and maintaining employment.
But he said he was being lenient towards the former police officer because of the lack of support he had been given while working at SA Police after dealing with traumatic work experiences.
The court heard that included being threatened with a firearm and having a colleague beaten in the street.
"You were already a damaged individual… while you were patrolling the streets of Whyalla," Magistrate Sale told the court.
"You should not have been in uniform that night."
Magistrate Sale said Jaunay was suffering chronic and complex post-traumatic stress disorder from his career with SA Police.
He also told the court a doctor had deemed he was at high risk of suicide.
Jaunay is set to appeal against his conviction later this month in the South Australian Supreme Court.
