I guess Melbourne is a natural fit for a Covid-era former NZ Police commissioner. As Good Oil readers may be aware, Mike Bush will be Victoria Police’s next commissioner. I’m sure he’ll be right at home in a police force even more despised for its brutality during Covid than even New Zealand’s.
A police force which still has bodies of the victims of its brutality to bury.
Daniel Peterson-English, the young man hurled to the floor of Melbourne’s Flinders Street Station by a police officer at the height of Victoria’s inhuman Covid-19 lockdown, has died.
In shocking footage shown around the world, Peterson-English was seen talking with – or confronting, depending on whose story you listen to – a small group of police. Peterson-English had been stopped for not wearing a mask.
The court earlier heard Peterson-English repeatedly hurled abuse at police, circled officers, and filmed them with his mobile phone in the lead-up to the violent incident.
The last is not a crime in the least. In fact, it’s every citizen’s lawful right. Still, it seems that Peterson-English had been at least somewhat confrontational over the course of the day.
Footage showed in court last year showed Peterson-English approaching the police and protective services officers inside the station at least four times over the course of more than an hour.
Witnesses told the court Peterson-English was acting erratically, barking at the officers and calling them “pigs”, “dogs” and “glorified snitches” […]
One PSO told the court he appeared so aggressive she pulled out her pepper spray in preparation for the situation escalating, something she had done less than a handful of times in her eight-year career.
After approaching police several times Peterson-English was arrested, fined for not wearing a mask, and released on the spot. He returned to the concourse area and continued to film the police shortly after.
OK. But, it must be pointed out, none of that is, sadly, unusual in the police line of work. They’d stoically put up with far worse, after all, at your average ‘pro-Palestine’ demonstration.
More to the point, as the video shows, at the time of the incident in question, Peterson-English was not doing any of the above. Nor was he confronting Acting Sergeant Beau Barrett. As the video shows, Barrett suddenly approaches from out of frame, walking at least three metres to come up to Peterson-English from behind. Without warning, he grabs the young man in a sling-tackle and hurls him with force to the concrete floor.
Daniel’s head hit the floor with a loud bang and his headphones came flying off. Someone in the train station shouted ‘Oh sh*t!’ as the force of the assault sent Daniel’s feet next to his head, almost snapping him in two as he spun on the floor, unconscious. There was ‘blood and urine everywhere’ and Daniel was ‘calling for his mum’ when he regained consciousness, the media reported at the time.
Barrett was suspended from Victoria Police and charged with recklessly causing injury and assault. In 2023, the case was thrown out by a magistrate.
In dismissing charges against Barrett of assault and recklessly causing injury, Magistrate Rob Stary stated although Daniel’s arrest was ‘not in strict accordance with the manual’, a jury, in his view, would not convict Barrett.
Lawyers for the Victorian Government believed otherwise. To avoid the likelihood of a successful appeal against Magistrate Stary’s decision, Daniel was given a confidential payout and was subject to a strict gag order.
There’s a lot of that in Victoria. Just ask Ryan Muhleman.
During his short lifetime since, Daniel was prohibited from speaking about the injuries he suffered on that fateful day.
Shortly before he died, Daniel placed the Cross of Christ in his room. He died in Melbourne on March 15, 2025, aged 32.
The coroner’s report into the causes of Daniel’s death will be released in June 2025.
No doubt, as with so much in Labor-stronghold Victoria, it will disappear quietly down the mainstream media’s memory hole.
