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A WA Police sergeant has told a Perth magistrate she felt smothered and harassed by the state’s assistant police commissioner in a case described in court as “a story of a friendship gone wrong”.
Gailene Hamilton is on trial in Perth Magistrates Court over allegations she stalked the woman, whose identity is protected, and used a police system to repeatedly look up her location for personal reasons.
Hamilton denies the accusations and is defending the charges.
On Monday, the complainant told the court how she felt scared and intimidated by the intensity of the more senior officer’s attentions and did not know how to handle it.
“I started feeling uncomfortable with it, but I couldn’t verbalise it,” the woman told the court.
She gave evidence that an offer for Hamilton stay at her Exmouth home started to become a more regular expectation.
“I wasn’t comfortable with the frequency. I just wasn’t comfortable with the friendship,” the woman said.
“There were things that happened along the way … she worried a lot.
“I didn’t need her to worry about me. It was constant worry. If I didn’t answer her messages straight away it would be, ‘are you OK?’”
The woman said she struggled to ask Hamilton to back off, telling the court she “didn’t want to offend” before adding that she was “worried” about her position, given Hamilton’s superiority.
“They have the power to make your life very difficult,” she said.
“I’ve seen people get people treated badly when things get taken personally or if someone doesn’t like you.”
The woman sought the help of a psychologist over the issue.
“I referred to Gailene as a high-ranking officer,” she said.
“I spoke to her about an issue I had and that I didn’t know how to deal with it.
“I was trying to create distance – for example, by saying ‘I’ve got stuff going on’, ‘I don’t really want anyone staying here at the moment’ – and I wasn’t being listened to.
“I was worried about what the repercussions would be.”
The woman said the pair got into arguments over the matter.
On one occasion recounted to the court, the woman said: “I’m a 52-year-old woman, I don’t need you to worry about me”, claiming that the exchange made Hamilton cry.
“I was feeling smothered,” she told the court.
“I said, ‘I feel like I’m in a relationship’, it was the worry and the constant messages, I felt that I had to reply.”
Later, the woman told the court she repeatedly tried to make excuses about Hamilton staying at her home, but she “was not getting the hint”.
On another occasion, the woman said she told Hamilton she was going on a date so she didn’t want her at her home, to which she claimed Hamilton said: “I don’t know why you don’t tell me things, why you don’t trust me?”
“And I shouted, ‘Because it’s none of your f—ing business!’ And I was done, I thought, ‘I don’t know why you’re not listening to me’,” she told the court.
Another incident led to the woman lying that she was sick to avoid a conversation she alleged led to a barrage of text messages and phone calls from Hamilton.
The woman then responded “please stop contacting me”, but claims the contact did not stop.
“I thought saying, ‘Please stop contacting me’ would be enough, but it wasn’t,” she told the court.
“There were many messages and many phone calls over a period of time.”
Hamilton is charged with one count of pursues another to intimidate and four counts of unlawful use of a computer in any case.
The trial expected to last between one and two weeks and will hear from other police officers who worked with the complainant, as well as her psychologist.
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