POLICE assumed it was an open and shut case when they found 330 bullets and a NSW Police Glock pistol magazine stored in a shed — but when it came to court they only shot themselves in the foot.

The attempt to prove Beaudie James Cullen, a police officer, had ­illegally stored the bullets at his Central Coast home was sunk by a lax investigation, and taxpayers paid $22,000 in court costs as a result.

Detective Sergeant Ralph ­George, a 13-year investigator, told a court the illegally-held ammunition was in the possession of Mr Cullen on his Ourimbah property.

Mr Cullen, who once captained the NSW Police rugby league team, was charged with not having ­approved storage for a gun and ­illegally holding ammunition and a banned weapon without a permit following a raid of his rural property in November 2014.

media_camera Beaudie James Cullen’s case was thrown out of court. Picture: Krystle Wright

He fronted the Downing Centre in March to defend the charges, which threatened to destroy his ­career and could have seen him jailed.

Mr Cullen’s lawyer, Paul McGirr, argued investigators did nothing to prove the officer was in possession of the ammunition beyond making ­assumptions it must have been the case because they were in a shed on his property.

Mr McGirr also told the court the investigators failed to rule out the possibility the ammunition was put there by Mr Cullen’s wife, who is also a police officer.

Mr McGirr told the court “you can tell how interested the police were when you listen to the video of the yawning going on” during the investigation before they found the gun safe.

Under cross-examination, Mr George admitted there were several “oversights” in the investigation.

This included not getting the boxes of ammunition DNA and forensically tested.

There were also no fingerprints matching Mr Cullen’s on the bullets in the magazine, which would have had have been pushed in individually when loaded.

Mr George told the court that documents with Mr Cullen’s name on them were in the box, leading to him concluding the bullets were in his possession.

“Sergeant ... if I go around to your house and I leave my card in your house it doesn’t mean I own everything else around there, does it? I hope you say yes but I don’t think that’s the way it works,” Mr McGirr said.

The sum total of the ­exchange was that police couldn’t prove Mr Cullen was in possession of the bullets.

Magistrate Geoffrey Bradd threw out the charges.

Originally published as Gun case backfires on cops