Protecting police and public officials from violence

The ACT Labor Government will today propose changes to the law on self-defence involving assaults on police officers and improve sentencing considerations for offences against police officers, emergency service workers, care and protection workers, nurses and other officials providing a service to the public, Attorney General, Simon Corbell, announced.

"This bill overrides the common law, which currently allows people to claim self defence when they assault police in the course of an arrest or while under police restraint," he said.

"This bill means that a defendant would not be able to claim self defence if they assault police where the arrest or restraint by police is lawful or the police have acted in good faith and used reasonable force.

"We currently have the unfortunate situation where a person can argue that they believe their arrest is unlawful to justify the use of violence against police. This is simply not acceptable."

If a person believes they have been arrested unlawfully, the issue can be quickly and properly remedied when the person is brought before a magistrate. This would ordinarily happen within hours. Further people unlawfully arrested may lodge a civil claim for damages or complain to bodies such as the Ombudsman.

Self defence will still be available to a defendant if they responded with violence to protect themselves against some other unlawful act by police, such as an assault or imminent assault by police.

The bill also amends section 33 of the Crimes (Sentencing) Act 2005 to include a requirement for a sentencing court to give consideration to whether the victim of an assault was a member of a vulnerable or ‘at-risk' occupation providing services to the public.

"This amendment recognises that there are a number of people providing a service to the ACT community who are at risk of injury because of their work. Examples include not just police officers, but also ambulance paramedics, bus drivers and care and protection workers," MrCorbell said.

"These changes will ensure that a sentencing court must have regard to whether the victim was, at the time of the offence, providing a service to the public which placed them at increased risk. This would allow the sentencing court to impose a sentence within the existing penalty range commensurate with the vulnerability of the victim providing the public service" Mr Corbell concluded.