A naked woman who was allegedly sprayed with capsicum foam as she cowered in a padded cell doused herself with toilet water to ease the pain, a Canberra court has heard.
The woman told the ACT Supreme Court she was drunk, had bitten a policeman and resisted arrest but did not deserve to be sprayed with the chemical agent.
Former police officer David Arthur Fearnside, 49, is on trial accused of illegally using capsicum foam on the woman when she was detained at the City Watch-House on the night of October 25, 2006.
Yesterday, she told Justice Malcolm Gray she had drunk four litres of cask wine in less than two hours before she was arrested.
''I was maggot, absolutely paralytic, by the time the police came,'' she said.
The court heard she bit the arresting officer on the arm and was sprayed with capsicum mist, an incident that is not the subject of legal proceedings.
''He was fully pulling my hair like - I'm sorry - like a little bitch, like a girl does,'' she said.
But she disputed the arresting officer's earlier evidence that she had grabbed his testicles.
''I'm telling you now, if I'd grabbed his testicles he would be in hospital. He'd never walk again,'' she said.
The woman, who said she took off her clothes in the paddy wagon as they were contaminated with capsicum spray, told the jury she did not cooperate with Fearnside's questioning at the watch-house.
''He asked me really stupid questions, like am I Aboriginal, Torres-Strait Islander, did I have AIDS,'' she said.
''I said yes to everything. I was irritable, I wanted water. I thought, if you're not going to give me water, I'll just be a smart-arse.''
She said that after she was detained in a padded cell, she banged on the door and demanded water.
''He [Fearnside] told me that I'd better stop and he'd either be my best friend or my worst nightmare, and he'd be my only line of help,'' she said.
''And if I thought that first lot hurt, wait till he sprayed me with this that's when he showed me the canister [of capsicum foam].''
The jury was shown video footage from a camera inside the padded cell in which the young woman is seen pounding on the door.
She retreats to the back wall as Fearnside enters and sprays her with foam at close range.
The recording then shows the woman writhing on the floor and reaching into a toilet bowl to douse herself with water.
''They just full annihilated me,'' she told the court.
''That stuff burns. You are literally on fire.''
The woman told the jury she heard someone say, ''This bitch is going to cop it now,'' before being foamed, but could not identify the voice.
The woman cried as she told the court she resorted to using water from the toilet bowl in an attempt to ease the pain caused by the capsicum foam.
''I put my hands in there and pulled the water out and splashed it on my face. I just wanted the burning to stop,'' she said.
The trial continues today.
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