10 September 2010
It takes Matt Butcher a few minutes to come to the side door of Joondalup police station. It's a difficult task just to get up from his chair and limp the few metres to the door release button. There's a computer back at his desk, but he can't use it because his left arm is paralysed and his motor skills are still in bad shape. So paperwork is a problem, and the young first class constable certainly can't go back out on the beat. Which will make it difficult to earn promotion. He also can't drive a car, or cut up his food, and he's unlikely to ever be able to kick a football or run around the park.
How did he end up this way? He was assaulted in February 2008 while trying to arrest a father and son just a few metres away from the police station. Constable Butcher was using his taser on the father, Robert McLeod, when the man's 28-year-old son Barry came flying at him, hitting him with his head, and knocking him unconscious.
Constable Butcher woke from an induced coma two weeks later. Now, after more than two years of medical treatment and tests, lawyers for Matt Butcher have lodged a compensation claim that's in the vicinity of $5 million dollars. That's substantially more than the $3.2 million paid to Andrew Mallard, the man who spent 12 years in jail for a murder he did not commit. That $3.2 million is the same sum paid in July to the family of Mr Ward, the Aboriginal man who died from heatstroke in the back of a prison van.
There's no real point of comparison between the three cases, other than to say that the payments were all deserved: Mallard lost 12 years of his life because of police errors and a series of failures in the justice system. Mr Ward's family lost their relative because of a broken air-conditioner and the failure of two security guards to check on their prisoner during a long drive on a hot day. Matt Butcher's life was forever altered because of another man's foolish actions. As police commissioner Karl O'Callaghan has stated, he was injured while doing policework and deserves compensation.
It'd be a foolhardy WA government that would contest or significantly reduce Matt Butcher's claim. It's an emotive issue: mandatory sentencing in WA was introduced partly because of the public disgust at what happened to the young officer. And the acquittal of Barry McLeod over the assault was one of the most unpopular jury decisions in the state's recent history.
The Mallard and Ward payments were an attempt to compensate for the mistakes of the State. The police force didn't do anything wrong in Matt Butcher's case – but a multi-million dollar payment seems the only fair treatment for a man who has been dealt an obscenely unfair hand.
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