NSW police officer accused of sexually assaulting, choking ex-wife

A NSW police officer has been accused of sexually assaulting and choking his former wife among a series of alleged assaults during their relationship.

The police officer, who cannot be named because it would indirectly identify the complainant, is standing trial on 19 domestic violence-related charges in Sydney’s Downing Centre District Court.

He allegedly told a child who called Triple Zero during one incident: “I will lose my job if you do that.”

During his opening address to the jury on Tuesday, Crown prosecutor Rohan Cooley anticipated the officer’s ex-wife would give evidence about alleged assaults spanning six years, including three sexual offences on one day that culminated in him locking the bedroom door and sexually assaulting her.

The complainant was expected to tell the court she “told him to stop” and he “disregarded” this, the prosecutor said.

Cooley said the complainant was also expected to give evidence that her ex-husband allegedly “smashed her head” into a pole during an incident some years earlier.

The Crown said some of the alleged assaults occurred on days when the complainant was packing her things in an attempt to leave him.

The court heard the accused allegedly put his hand around his former wife’s neck and applied pressure, leaving her “gasping for air”, prompting a child to intervene, and punched her on the chin “in an uppercut motion” during separate incidents.

On another occasion, he is accused of pushing her head into the passenger side window of their car “a number of times, forcefully and hard”, Cooley said.

Cooley said the complainant would allege her former husband caused the car she was driving “to lose traction and stop in the middle of the road” during one disagreement.

He was charged with intimidation over the alleged incident. The court heard he is accused of changing the gears and pulling on the handbrake from the passenger seat while the complainant was driving “at speed”, or about 70 kilometres an hour.

Cooley said the court would hear evidence that a child in the car called Triple Zero, but “hung up before it connected, as I understand it, when it’s said that the accused told [the child], ‘I will lose my job if you do that’.”

On another occasion, the accused allegedly told his wife: “I’ll bash your head against the wall.” He was charged with intimidation over that alleged incident.

The court is also expected to hear evidence the accused replied to the complainant’s suggestion that she would report him to the police about a separate incident of alleged sexual touching without consent by saying: “Try it