{"id":53490,"date":"2025-08-08T18:13:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T18:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/53490\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T18:13:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T18:13:11","slug":"men-found-not-guilty-of-assaulting-former-police-officer-in-geraldton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/53490\/","title":{"rendered":"Men found not guilty of assaulting former police officer in Geraldton"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two men have been found not guilty of assaulting a former police officer in regional Western Australia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jack Seelander, 19, \u00a0and Justin Troy Ernest Little, 22, were accused of attacking former police sergeant Adrian Barker during a confrontation in Geraldton in March 2024.<\/p>\n

It was established during a trial in Geraldton Magistrates Court that an axe or hammer was at one point used against Mr Barker.<\/p>\n

The pair were found not guilty of assault causing bodily harm on Friday after a three-day trial in July.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The court previously heard Mr Barker was returning to his home in Wandina about 3am on March 17, 2024, when he passed a group of eight boys and men.<\/p>\n

Under cross-examination by defence lawyer Lauren Roycroft, Mr Barker said he thought the group would “be trouble”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

People later tried to break into Mr Barker’s property and he confronted the group, which included Mr Little and Mr Seelander.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After a short interaction, Mr Barker hit Mr Little and knocked him to the ground.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The court heard the group initially ran away, before members attacked Mr Barker, with an axe or hammer used at one point.<\/p>\n

During the trial’s closing statements, police prosecutor Sergeant Thomas Potts said Mr Barker “pre-emptively” struck Mr Little as his path to flee was blocked by group members.<\/p>\n

Defence lawyer Lauren Roycroft said there was a “a wealth of evidence that Mr Barker was the aggressor”<\/a> as he initially “king hit” Mr Little.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Not guilty’ but former officer was attacked<\/p>\n

Geraldton magistrate Mathew Walton on Friday found Mr Little and Mr Seelander not guilty of the assault.<\/p>\n

\"Close<\/p>\n

The court heard of an altercation between Mr Barker and a group of boys and men. (ABC Midwest and Wheatbelt: Chris Lewis)<\/p>\n

He said the reasonings were too extensive to detail in court, and they would be passed in writing to the relevant parties later in the day.<\/p>\n

Mr Walton said although the pair were found not guilty, Mr Barker endured an “unjustified and brutal attack”, including multiple blows to the head from an axe or hammer.<\/p>\n

“[Mr Barker] suffered significant and obvious injuries,” he said.<\/p>\n

During closing statements in July, the defence said Mr Barker had instigated the violence, and in the following months gave inconsistent accounts to police and under cross-examination.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In handing down his verdict, Mr Walton reaffirmed Mr Barker’s credibility.<\/p>\n

“There is nothing in the evidence to question the integrity of the complainant, Mr Barker,” Mr Walton said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two men have been found not guilty of assaulting a former police officer in regional Western Australia.\u00a0 Jack…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[44596,64,63,44593,44597,44598,44595,44594,44,44600,1109,44599,27077,24690],"class_list":["post-53490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-adrian-barker","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-axe-attack","tag-bodily-harm","tag-courthouse","tag-former-police-officer","tag-hatchet-attack","tag-news","tag-sentence","tag-trial","tag-violent-crime","tag-youth-crime","tag-youth-justice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}