The ensuing incident set off a chain of events that led to serious allegations of assault and perjury against the two male constables. Charges dropped: Rickey Caton was arrested after he pointed a toy dinosaur at police. Credit:Andrew Meares It has also brought allegations that Ms Litchfield suffered workplace bullying by her fellow officers at the Monaro Local Area Command and was effectively forced to resign. "It's been horrendous," Ms Litchfield said. "Resigning from the force is not a decision I wanted to make – it's a decision I was forced into."

After the incident Ms Litchfield wrote a statement contradicting the claims by constables Hicks and Finnegan that Mr Caton and his friend Adam Antram had tried to assault them. She said that in fact the male officers had been the aggressors, forcibly hand-cuffing Mr Caton and crash tackling Mr Antram into a retaining wall. "When Adam was tackled I was probably in shock," Ms Litchfield said. "The situation didn't warrant that kind of reaction. There was just a level of confusion as to why it was becoming violent." Ms Litchfield says that, from the moment constables Hicks and Finnegan realised she had contradicted their accounts their behaviour toward her changed dramatically.

"They could tell pretty quickly that things weren't going to go their way," she said. The apparent displeasure of the two constables allegedly spread quickly through the rest of the command in the form of gossip, rumour and innuendo. This allegedly increased after Ms Litchfield backed up her statement in court, resulting in the dropping of all charges against Mr Caton and Mr Antram. Ms Litchfield says she was isolated, bullied and victimised by her colleagues at Monaro, from senior officers to the rank and file. "It was toxic," she says

"I'd walk into a room and they'd get up and leave or I'd walk into a room and they'd just immediately stop talking. "Unfortunately, the culture of the police force is that people gossip and then there's a lot of rumour and innuendo going around without any evidence to support it." The former officer says that on one occasion she returned to her work station to find that a copy of the force's policy regarding the protection of internal police complainants had been placed on her desk. "The suggestion was that I needed protection," Ms Litchfield says. She made a formal complaint over the incident, but says it was not taken seriously and those investigating the matter were unable to find out who was responsible.

She says this was indicative of a lack of support from senior officers at Monaro. This included being told that she had no choice but to continue working at the same command where she was being victimised when she returned from a period of stress leave brought about by the incident. "I was placed on a return to work plan that meant I would have to go back to Queanbeyan after a month. When I then submitted my resignation it was made clear by the commander that my only option was to return to that station," she said. "That certainly solidified my decision to leave." On Friday, Ms Litchfield was publicly vindicated for taking a stand when magistrate Mark Douglass described her evidence about the incident as "cogent and compelling".

"It was very satisfying to hear that," she said. Mr Douglass ordered the police to pay Mr Caton and Mr Antram more than $100,000 in legal costs.