A police offer has been charged with indecent assault, after groping a woman at Defqon.1 festival last year.
Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that Mitchell James Willey, who was drunk and shirtless, walked up to the woman at the festival on Saturday, 16th September last year, and grabbed her vagina. Seven police officers were directly following him.
The woman said “Don’t touch me!” before Willey, who was off-duty, was grabbed by another sergeant. After the incident, Willey was suspended without pay and has been for over a year.
Prosecutor Kate Owens said that “women in particular should be able to attend these events and go about their day-to-day lives without fear of this kind of interference with their body.”
“There is quite a vocal protest going on in this state and elsewhere,” Ms Owens told magistrate Geoff Hiatt.
“She was randomly attacked by this offender.”
Hiatt said that he found it hard to believe that Willey was at all remorseful for his “reprehensible” actions. Willey has been sentenced to a two-year community corrections order, and is likely to lose his job.
This comes after Defqon.1 made nationwide headlines earlier this year, following NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s comments saying that the festival will be banned from the state after two people died at this year’s event.
