{"id":176711,"date":"2025-12-10T05:51:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T05:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/176711\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T05:51:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T05:51:09","slug":"waikato-police-officer-jacob-collins-gives-up-suppression-appeal-after-pepper-spray-assault-conviction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/176711\/","title":{"rendered":"Waikato police officer Jacob Collins gives up suppression appeal after pepper spray assault conviction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Collins was convicted and ordered to pay the victim $1000 in emotional harm<\/a> reparation.<\/p>\n

Collins\u2019 counsel, Russell Boot, went on to indicate he would take 28 days for his client to consider appealing the conviction, name and occupation suppression, or all.<\/p>\n

However, NZME has confirmed no appeal has been filed.<\/p>\n

\u2018I asked him four times for his keys\u2019<\/p>\n

The incident happened on January 10, last year, when Collins was driving an unmarked patrol car north between Te Awamutu and \u014chaup\u014d.<\/p>\n

As he approached the end of a passing lane, he was overtaken by a motorist, causing him to brake and safely pull in behind him.<\/p>\n

Collins immediately activated his flashing lights, and the car pulled into a cemetery driveway about 500m away.<\/p>\n

The officer approached the car\u2019s passenger window, and the victim wound it down so they could speak.<\/p>\n

\"JacobJacob Collins was sentenced in the Hamilton District Court.<\/p>\n

Collins asked for his driver\u2019s licence, which was given, and he began carrying out various checks before discovering the licence had expired four months earlier.<\/p>\n

The victim\u2019s vehicle also had no current registration or warrant of fitness.<\/p>\n

Collins told the victim his licence had expired, that he was now forbidden to drive and asked him to hand over his car keys.<\/p>\n

The victim said he didn\u2019t understand the reason for handing his keys over and began to question the legitimacy of the demand.<\/p>\n

It would later be revealed that Collins\u2019 demand for the keys was unlawful, which in turn made all of his subsequent actions in using force unlawful.<\/p>\n

Collins asked the victim \u201cat least four times\u201d for his keys before drawing a can of OC spray and aiming it at the victim\u2019s face, telling him he would be sprayed if he didn\u2019t comply or remain stopped.<\/p>\n

Sprayed again while suffering \u2018immensely\u2019<\/p>\n

The victim removed his keys from the ignition and held his hands up in a surrender position while displaying the keys.<\/p>\n

When the constable went to grab them, the victim pulled his hand away, out of reach.<\/p>\n

Collins then sprayed him twice in the face, debilitating the victim and causing him irritation, difficulty breathing, a runny nose, pain, a burning sensation and temporary blindness.<\/p>\n

As he got out of his car, he dropped his glasses.<\/p>\n

\"ConstableConstable Jacob Collins, pictured during Waikato Police’s Remembrance Day service in September. Photo \/ Waikato Police Facebook<\/p>\n

Collins then appeared at the front of the car and sprayed the man, who was already suffering \u201cimmensely\u201d, a third time.<\/p>\n

He then took hold of the victim and placed him over the bonnet of his car and put him in handcuffs, before putting him in his passenger seat.<\/p>\n

The victim was then told he had been arrested for disorderly behaviour.<\/p>\n

As the officer called for back-up from the communication centre, the victim could be heard in the background shouting in distress.<\/p>\n

Collins agreed to release the victim from his handcuffs after he asked to use some baby wipes to wipe his eyes.<\/p>\n

About half an hour later, the victim was told he had been forbidden to drive, with the condition not to drive for a further six hours so he could recover from the OC spray.<\/p>\n

He was also given a ticket for making an unsafe passing manoeuvre and not displaying a current warrant.<\/p>\n

Collins gave him a warning for disorderly behaviour before dropping him off at a bus stop in Te Awamutu.<\/p>\n

A tactical option<\/p>\n

In an interview with his superior, Collins thought he could legally request the keys; he felt the victim \u201cpresented a risk to the travelling public\u201d, and the only tactical option available to him was using the spray.<\/p>\n

The superior considered the officer\u2019s conduct \u201cappropriate\u201d, stating he was \u201cdealing with an aggressive and non-compliant complainant\u201d.<\/p>\n

The judge noted that while Collins did not have any previous convictions, he had previously received a discharge without conviction for an unrelated assault charge.<\/p>\n

Judge Cocurullo said, as he understood it, OC spray was used by police to bring an aggressive or non-compliant person under control.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere, there seems to have been no defensive position for you to take in the application of the spray.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis man had not abused and\/or threatened you.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had not, from the restricted position in the driver\u2019s seat of the car, attempted to hit you.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had complied with some of your requests to stop the car and remove keys.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt could only be said his non-compliance was that he refused your request to give keys over when you had no basis to do that in any event.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was also the first time in Collins\u2019 police career that he had used OC spray.<\/p>\n

Judge Cocurullo said the third delivery of the OC spray was \u201can option that simply ought not to have been gone to\u201d.<\/p>\n

Police would finalise their employment proceedings once the criminal prosecution had concluded, it was understood.<\/p>\n

Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 10 years and has been a journalist for 21.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Collins was convicted and ordered to pay the victim $1000 in emotional harm reparation. Collins\u2019 counsel, Russell Boot,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":176712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,6375,17704,36177,15970,20733,54173,111,43,139,69,10932,3751,675,83799,13618,810,1524],"class_list":["post-176711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-appeal","tag-assault","tag-collins","tag-conviction","tag-gives","tag-jacob","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-officer","tag-pepper","tag-police","tag-spray","tag-suppression","tag-up","tag-waikato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}