A YOUNG Aboriginal man falsely accused of assaulting a police officer was serving a suspended sentence for a similar offence at the time.
Corey Barker, 24, was fined $800 and given a nine-month suspended jail sentence in Byron Bay Local Court in June 2010 for using offensive language, resisting an officer and assaulting an officer.
In 2008, he received a 12-month good behaviour bond for common assault.
Mr Barker's criminal history was tendered to the Police Integrity Commission (PIC) in Sydney where he was giving evidence on Tuesday.
The PIC is looking at allegations officers bashed Mr Barker while he was in custody and later falsely accused him of assaulting them, after he intervened in an altercation between police and two of his friends in January 2011.
He was initially charged with punching a police officer and other offences, but the charges were dropped.
The case was referred to the PIC after CCTV footage from inside Ballina police station contradicted testimony from officers, and a magistrate found they had lied about the incident.
Mr Barker said when his mother visited him at the police station one officer made a lewd gesture while standing behind her.
"I saw an officer behind doing a gesture, pretending to squeeze her arse," he told the inquiry.
"They were just trying to aggravate me."
Sometime later, Constable Luke Mewing approached him from outside the cage with a mobile phone and asked Mr Barker for the access code.
The inquiry heard that Mr Barker had tried to film the altercation between police and his friends but was tackled by an officer.
He had borrowed his sister's phone and didn't know the code.
"He got a bit angry, expecting me to know it," Mr Barker said.
Four officers then attempted to move him from the cage to another room, intending to take him to a cell down the hall.
"They had shoved me through the door ... to provoke me," he said.
Police falsely claimed he had punched Senior Constable David Hill on the nose in that incident.
The CCTV footage showed the officers wrestling Mr Barker to the ground, kicking him in the head and kneeing him in his side.
The officers handcuffed him and dragged him along the floor down to the cells with his arms in a vertical position.
"It had to be the top of the cake for pain in that incident," Mr Barker said.
He suffered injuries to his face, neck, arms and hips.
The inquiry continues.
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