Police won’t cop bashing

By Lia Bichel
ASSISTANT Commissioner Paul Evans has denied a lack of police members contributed to the “nasty” bashing of a senior constable in Dandenong last week.
Despite calls for more police from local Liberal MP Gordon Rich-Phillips, Mr Evans said there was a “sufficient” number of members available for back-up at the time Senior Constable Danni Sangston was assaulted.
Mr Evans said Sen Con Sangston received serious head injuries after he was allegedly kicked and stomped on when he pulled over a car on Dennis Street, Dandenong at 5:45pm on Thursday.
Police said checks indicated that the driver of the vehicle may have been unlicensed and that the car was unregistered. The assault prompted Mr Rich-Phillips to call for a greater police presence, and harsher penalties for offenders.
“Why was he (Sen Const Sangston) working one up? The police association is telling us that we are 100 police members short in Dandenong. There are shortages of police in the south-east,” Mr Rich-Phillips said.“We need to provide greater protection to our police. The penalties for assaulting police are clearly inadequate. There needs to be a message that it is unacceptable to be assaulting emergency service workers such as police. To think someone did this is appalling, and it’s because they know whatever penalty they will receive will be minimal.”
Mr Evans denied that a lack of police contributed to the assault but agreed that such attacks were intolerable. He said Sen Const Sangston called for back-up when he stopped the car, but the assault occurred before back-up arrived.“We had sufficient police on last night and there was plenty of back-up available,” he said. “As a force, we can’t tolerate it. It is totally inappropriate.”
Dandenong Crime Investigation Unit detectives charged three men on Friday. Craig Terrick, 18, from Dandenong and Matthew Andy, 28 from Hampton Park both appeared before an out of sessions court hearing on Friday night. They were remanded to appear at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court yesterday (4 November).
A 25-year-old Hampton Park man was also charged and bailed to appear at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court yesterday (4 November).
All three men have been charged with assault charges including intentionally causing serious injury, assaulting police, theft, escape and affray.
Two men a 34-year-old from Berwick and a 26-year-old from Doveton have been released and expected to be charged on summons with being an accessory after the fact.