Rickey Caton was arrested by NSW police for pointing a toy dinosaur at police. The charges were dismissed. Credit:Andrew Meares "One of the cops shouted 'put your hands outside the windows! Have you got any weapons in the car?'" he says of the December 2013 incident. The 31-year-old removalist produced a green, plastic dinosaur which his daughter had left in the back seat and declared "No weapons, but I've got a big dinosaur ... roaaaar!". According to Mr Caton, Senior Constable Todd Finnegan pulled him from the car, forced him onto the gravel footpath and roughly handcuffed him. "I was saying 'what are you doing? We haven't done anything!" Mr Caton says.

Meanwhile, Mr Caton's mate Adam Antram stepped out of the front passenger seat and stood by a nearby retaining wall following a direction from another officer, Senior Constable Lucie Litchfield. The third officer, Senior Constable Patrick Hicks allegedly shouted at Mr Antram to get his hands out of his pockets and – though the young man complied with the request – then shoulder charged him into the wall, knocking him out for a number of seconds. Soon after Mr Caton was allegedly assaulted by Constables Hicks again, forcing him to the ground and landing on top of him before again roughly handcuffing him. In sworn statements and oral evidence before Queanbeyan local court, Constables Hicks and Finnegan said they initially stopped the car because they had been told those responsible for the home invasion had been driving a green Commodore. They said Mr Caton had been forced to the ground and handcuffed not because he was brandishing a plastic dinosaur but because he had been "rummaging around in his pockets… possibly for a weapon".

Mr Antram had charged Constable Finnegan, the two male officers claimed, with Constable Hicks intervening just in time. But their own colleague, Constable Litchfield, provided a very different version of events, effectively blowing the whistle on her colleagues. She said that, far from charging at Constable Finnegan, Adam Antram had being standing compliantly next to her. On April 28 this year, as two senior Inspectors from her Local Area Command sat watching from the back of the courtroom, Constable Litchfield gave emotional testimony that her colleague's statements were false. "That wasn't true?" counsel for Mr Caton, Steven Boland asked the officer in relation to Hicks and Finnegan's assault claims against Mr Caton and his mates.

"That's correct, it didn't happen," Constable Litchfield said. "And you understand that is a deeply serious thing to say about a fellow police officer?" Mr Boland continued. "Yes, I do," the witness replied. Constable Litchfield broke down as she described the "tense and horrible" atmosphere allegedly perpetuated by the other two constables since she had spoken out. "I've been…certain…certain amount excluded and spoken badly about and have heard things spoken about me behind my back. Senior Constable Finnegan won't speak to me at all – actually won't even look at me."

Following a brief adjournment in the middle of Constable Litchfield's evidence, the Police Prosecutor in the case, Senior Sergeant Matthew Zalunardo, withdrew the charges of assaulting police against both the accused. Lawyers for Mr Caton and Mr Antram are now seeking an order that the NSW Police pay all of its legal costs in the matter, a bill that will exceed $50,000.