Prosecutors have urged a Canberra jury to recognise that it is not unusual for young women to fight with their boyfriends, get drunk and end up in custody.
In the ACT Supreme Court yesterday, crown prosecutor Jon White presented his closing arguments in the trial of 49-year-old David Arthur Fearnside.
The former sergeant is accused of inappropriately spraying a woman with capsicum foam in the City Watch-House on October 25, 2006, after she was arrested following a drunken quarrel.
Mr White encouraged jury members to draw on their life experience when assessing the case.
''Your common sense will tell you that, from time to time, young women fight with their boyfriends, drink more than they ought, behave disgracefully and end up at the City Watch-House,'' he said.
''And when they end up at the City Watch-House they are dealt with by police who act on behalf of the community.''
He told the court the woman had been agitated but calmed down after the arresting officer treated her with capsicum spray, an event that is not subject to legal proceedings.
''Her behaviour continued to be disruptive and uncooperative but she did not spit at any officers, did not engage in actual self-harm,'' he said.
''There is no evidence in this case of [the woman] ever self-harming. What there is, is evidence that someone placed two alerts on a computer.
''What there is, is annoying behaviour, persistent banging, persistent yelling, but it's not self-harming behaviour.''
The prosecutor labelled Fearnside's conduct towards the woman unprofessional.
''He demeaned her, he threatened her ... Then he dismissed her to a padded cell,'' Mr White said.
The court heard Fearnside refused the woman's request for a shower when she first entered the watch-house, and did not offer to flush away the chemical agent after spraying her with foam later that night.
''The [television] monitors were aware she was scooping water out of the toilet to decontaminate herself,'' he said.
Mr White argued that Fearnside was motivated by a desire to punish the woman, not assist her.
He said the woman was a credible witness.
''She never denied she'd got disgustingly drunk and bitten a copper and kicked two holes in the wall she pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity,'' he said.
Mr White told the jury that, notwithstanding Fearnside's history of depression, the former policeman had been functioning normally at the time of the alleged incident.
''This is not a matter where you should find a person not guilty because of some trauma he might have suffered,'' he said.
Fearnside's lawyer, John Purnell, SC, said his client's mental condition was critical to the case.
He also argued that it was easy to see why one of the watch-house constables had looked at closed-circuit television footage from the woman's cell and formed the impression the prisoner was hitting her head.
Closing arguments continue today.
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