PerthNorg

Woods Inquest Day 2 - what jacket, what batons?

The second day of the inquest into the death of Carl Woods brought new high voltage revelations raising questions about the veracity of the arresting officers’ statements to police internal investigators.

 

Three neighbours of the Parmelia witness whose house Woods broke into, gave evidence to the coronial inquest today that Carl Woods had not been wearing a jacket at the time of his arrest.

 

In detailed explanations yesterday, WAPOL officer Darren Bethel - who conducted the year-long internal inquiry into the death, gave the four officers’ accounts of each of the twelve minutes between their arrival at the job and the arrival of Ambulance officers to resuscitate Woods.

 

The arresting officers told Mr Bethel they had spent three of the twelve minutes cutting a jacket off Woods’ handcuffed body with a kitchen knife, as he lay on the ground outside the Parmelia house.

 

However, the neighbours’ statements today raise further questions over the reliability of arresting officers’ statements to internal investigators.

 

This comes after a leading witness gave a sworn statement to Felicity Zempilas last month, that she had seen one officer using a baton on Woods – although all four officers denied that when they were questioned by fellow police.

 

The court also heard from Darren Bethel that none of the batons had been forensically tested for Woods’ blood and only two of the arresting officers’ presented their mag torches for testing.

 

Yesterday Mr Bethel also outlined a number of delays in officers applying duty of care procedures to Woods as he was dying, with a further three minutes now to be accounted for due to today’s evidence.

 

The inquest resumes tomorrow.