McLeods not guilty of assaulting Matthew Butcher Article from: PerthNow
Todd Cardy, court reporter
March 12, 2009 05:50pm
BREAKING NEWS: A FATHER and his two sons have been found not guilty of assaulting WA policeman Matthew Butcher during a wild brawl that left him partially paralysed.
A Perth District Court jury found Robert McLeod, 56, and his two sons Barry McLeod, 29, and Scott James McLeod, 35, not guilty of eight charges of assault laid after the fight at the Old Bailey Tavern in Joondalup in February last year.
The jury of eight men and four women returned the verdicts about 5.30pm today after 11 hours of deliberation over the past two days on the charges, which included assaulting a public officer.
However the jury found Scott McLeod guilty on one count of threatening to kill a member of the public who had recorded the incident on a mobile phone.
Robert McLeod was not in court to hear his acquittal, as he was recovering in hospital after suffering a stroke over the weekend.
Barry and Scott McLeod remained seated as the verdicts were read but were clearly elated, with supporters also crying in the packed public gallery.
Constable Butcher, one of three police called to calm the brawl between the McLeods and a group of painters who had been drinking at the pub, was seriously injured during the fight.
During a trial that lasted nearly six weeks, the court heard evidence that Barry McLeod made a ``flying head butt’’ at Constable Butcher and struck him to the back left-side of the head after the policeman shot his father with a Taser gun.
Robert McLeod collapsed from a heart attack – his third in three years – after he was fired upon with the Taser.
Video of the brawl taken by a member of the public on a mobile phone was shown to the jury.
Barry McLeod had been charged with endangering the life of Constable Butcher, who was knocked unconscious.
Constable Butcher testified that he did not remember anything of the day after spending more than a week in a coma in hospital.
He now cannot fully use the left side of his body.
Robert McLeod had been charged with assaulting Constable Butcher among other offences, but told the jury he punched him three times in the stomach to ``get him off’’ his son.
Prosecutor Simon Stone labelled the attack on Constable Butcher a use of ``brutal and excessive force’’ and said the three men continued to fight in the brawl to defend ``McLeod pride’’.
But defence lawyers accused police of using excessive force on the McLeods, who had pleaded not guilty to all charges and said they were acting only to protect themselves.
