A TAYSIDE POLICE officer accused of assaulting two men and endangering a third while trying to apprehend them appeared for trial at Dundee Sheriff Court yesterday.

Police Constable Jon Christie (26) denies assaulting Brian David Hill (26) in Murraygate on December 20, 2004, and striking him on the head with his hand to his injury.

He also denies a second assault on Mr Hill on the same occasion by striking his head against the side of a van to his injury.

He further denies that on August 18, 2005, at the Jet garage forecourt in Marketgait, he culpably and recklessly attempted to seize Shane Izatt (27) by the legs and pull him from a wall to the danger of his health and safety.

He also denies assaulting Duncan Gardiner (27) on the same occasion, seizing him by the body, pulling him across a wall, knocking him to the ground, punching him on the face and seizing him by the throat, all to his injury.

Mr Hill told the court he was heading along Murraygate to find a taxi after a night out with friends when he saw a police car heading towards him. The car stopped and PC Christie jumped out, Mr Hill continued.

He said the officer threw him to the ground from behind.

He was flat on his stomach with his head to the side, with the officer on his back and PC Christie, “started trying to choke me,” Mr Hill went on.

He told the court, “He was putting a lot of force on my throat with his forearm and then he punched me.”

Mr Hill said he suffered scrapes and bruising to his face where it had been on the ground and lumps on his head where he had been punched.

He believed PC Christie had hold of him on his right-hand side and he said his head was “smashed” off the van.

He was taken to police headquarters and charged with police assault, breach of the peace and theft from The Yard pub.

Defence QC Paul McBride put it to Mr Hill he was no stranger to the courts as he has 36 pages of previous convictions.

Mr Hill accepted he has a long record but said most of the convictions were for crimes of dishonesty or road traffic offences.

To Mr McBride’s suggestion that among other types of offence his record included three or four convictions for police assault Mr Hill replied, “I can’t remember three, maybe one.”

Mr McBride asked if he could explain why the custody officer had noted in the records Mr Hill was uninjured when he arrived at police headquarters.

“He maybe didn’t look close enough,” replied Mr Hill.

Mr McBride then took him through the custody records for that night, which noted several occasions when Mr Hill was said to have sworn at staff, threatened them, kicked and hit the door and spat at the hatch.

PC Dean Morrison said he had answered the call to The Yard with PC Christie.

They had seen Mr Hill and a companion entering an alley that ran between Seagate and Murraygate and he had chased them on foot, catching Mr Hill’s friend, while his colleague had driven round to head them off in Murraygate.

PC Morrison told the court he had later been shown CCTV footage taken inside The Yard which showed Mr Hill and another man climbing over the bar and helping themselves to the stock.

At police headquarters, PC Christie had shown him a red mark on his knee and told him he had been bitten by Mr Hill.

Mr Izatt said he and a group of friends had travelled over from Anstruther in a minibus for a night out in Dundee.

He had been thrown out of a nightclub and there was a fight outside, he told the court.

He was detained by the police but was released when they accepted he was not involved and was getting the minibus home from the Jet garage.

He said he scaled an eight-foot high wall when he saw a police van approaching, but couldn’t say why as he was drunk at the time and it was so long ago.

One of his friends, David Anderson, joined him to try to talk him down and a police officer climbed on the wall on the other side of Mr Anderson.

He said he recalled at least one officer trying to pull his feet but thought it was “like a collision” between Mr Anderson and the officer on the wall that caused him to fall off.

He could not identify any of the officers involved.

Mr Gardiner said he was on a lower section of wall beside Mr Izatt, shouting at a policeman to stop trying to pull his friend off the wall as he feared if he fell “he would end up killing himself.”

The officers told him to go away and when he continued shouting onepulled him from the wall and he was grabbed and put on the ground.

There was a “sort of scuffle” on the ground involving a number of officers and he was smacked in the face, causing his glasses to fly off, he said.

Under cross-examination, he denied his glasses had come off in a clash of heads with a police officer but accepted he had sustained no injuries.

He, too, was unable to identify any of the police officers involved that night.

The trial continues before Sheriff Duff.