Victorian police officer charged after allegedly punching and kicking handcuffed teenager during arrest

A Victorian detective allegedly punched and kicked a teenager multiple times while they were handcuffed and compliant during an arrest last year, the state’s corruption watchdog says.

The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (Ibac) said on Friday that it had charged the detective senior constable with common assault in relation to the October 2025 incident in Ballarat.

“IBAC will allege that the Detective Senior Constable unlawfully punched and kicked the teenager multiple times, following the teen’s arrest, while they were handcuffed and compliant,” the statement said. The teenager was under 18 years old at the time.

The police officer is expected to appear before Ballarat magistrates court on 26 October.

It is the fourth time in five weeks that the watchdog has charged a Victorian police officer with assault – a considerable increase on previous years.

Only one police officer was charged with assault by Ibac in 2025, which was also the first full year of operation for its focused police complaints team.

“IBAC’s FPCT assesses and investigates serious, single-incident allegations of Victoria Police misconduct against people from communities at a higher risk of experiencing police misconduct, including children and young people,” it said in its statement on Friday.

Earlier this month, a leading senior constable was charged with four counts of assault after an investigation into the force used against a teenager in Braybrook in Melbourne’s west in October 2025.

Ibac allege that the leading senior constable unlawfully struck the teen with a baton multiple times and stood on the teenager while they were being restrained on the ground.

He was charged with two counts of aggravated assault with a weapon and two counts of unlawful assault.

In August, Ibac charged two officers with assault after they allegedly used a Taser and knee to repeatedly strike a man in the head during an arrest last year.

Ibac’s deputy commissioner for police oversight, Liana Buchanan, said in March that the team was a key factor in the increase in investigations and recommendations into the police. Only a small percentage of complaints about police had been investigated by Ibac prior to the team’s establishment.

“This important stream of work means IBAC is stepping in more frequently to conduct fully independent investigations of police misconduct against children, Aboriginal people, people from culturally diverse backgrounds, people experiencing mental ill-health and others,” she said.