A Gold Coast police sergeant faces a possible jail term of up to seven years after being charged over allegedly leaking footage that showed colleagues bashing a man in handcuffs under Surfers Paradise station.

Rick Flori, 44, was stood down and charged on Friday with one count of misconduct in public office after he allegedly released CCTV footage to the Courier-Mail newspaper of the police assault on chef Noa Begic in 2012.

Flori, who is due to appear in Southport magistrates court on 15 July, will fight the charge with representation from Queensland police union solicitor Calvin Gnech, a union spokesman said.

The two officers who assaulted Begic were disciplined but faced no charges.

Begic, who was repeatedly punched and forced into a concrete floor while offering no resistance to the officers after his arrest for public nuisance and obstructing police, had those charges dropped and his compensation claim settled out of court.

The president of the Australian Council for Civil Liberties, Terry O’Gorman, said earlier the case against Flori would be closely watched because it went to the heart of the risks whistleblowers took.

“Queenslanders will say what sort of a system have we got where a video shows a number of police belting the hell out of a bloke. They don’t get charged, but the officer who leaks the video to the media gets charged,” O’Gorman told the ABC.

Speaking outside police headquarters in Brisbane, Flori thanked his supporters.

“I thank my family ... I’ve had multiple phone calls and text messages. I’m very grateful and I thank you all,” he said.

Queensland police said in a statement that the officer was the “subject of an investigation concerning allegations he accessed and released confidential information”.

The misconduct charge under Queensland’s criminal code relates to “a public officer who, with intent to dishonestly gain a benefit for the officer or another person or to dishonestly cause a detriment to another person … deals with information gained because of office”.

It carries a maximum penalty of seven years’ prison.