A Bay of Plenty police sergeant has been acquitted after a jury heard he punched a woman five times while she was being held in a police cell. The verdict resolves the criminal charge, but the case raises a separate public-interest question about how force used against people in custody is authorised, recorded and independently scrutinised
Report by eLocal
A Tauranga jury has found a police sergeant not guilty of injuring with intent to injure after hearing evidence that he punched Marina Kēri Bevins five times while she was being held in a Bay of Plenty police cell.
The incident occurred after Bevins was arrested in May 2023 for breaching a bail condition. According to reporting by Open Justice and the New Zealand Herald, republished by RNZ, CCTV footage of the encounter was played during the trial. Bevins suffered facial bruising, a fractured cheek and tooth damage, and later required an emergency root canal.
The central question for the jury was not whether force had been used. The sergeant accepted punching Bevins. The disputed issues included why the punches were delivered, whether they were justified as self-defence or reasonable force, whether the punches caused the injuries alleged by the Crown, and whether the prosecution had proved the required intent to injure.
After about six hours of deliberation, an 11-member majority found the sergeant not guilty.
What the CCTV Showed
The footage showed Bevins sitting on a cell bed after her arrest. The sergeant entered, removed a blanket she had put into the toilet and then approached her.
He told the jury that he initially tugged her arm and used more force when she did not comply. Bevins described the approach differently, saying he entered aggressively and pulled her from the bed.
The footage showed the sergeant putting Bevins onto the bed and punching her. He said the first punch was a response to her striking his face. Bevins was partly obscured by his body in the CCTV, meaning the footage did not clearly show what she was doing at that moment.
The sergeant then delivered further punches. He characterised them as short "compliance" punches and maintained that they were not intended to injure her. He later delivered a fifth punch after Bevins had stood on the bed and officers were attempting to control her. He said she had lashed out and tried to grab his face. She denied doing so.
The existence of the footage was therefore important, but it did not resolve every disputed fact. Parts of Bevins' actions were obscured and the jury still had to assess testimony, medical evidence and the legal tests governing the use of force.
Crown: Force Went Too Far
Crown prosecutor Molly Tutton-Harris accepted that Bevins had been difficult and belligerent during the night. The prosecution nevertheless argued that her behaviour did not determine whether each individual use of force was lawful.
The Crown's case was that the sergeant used force beyond what was required, and punched Bevins out of anger, retaliation and frustration. Prosecutors argued that other officers were present and that less forceful options were available.
One piece of evidence highlighted by the Crown was a police form completed after the incident. The sergeant had ticked a box indicating that he felt "very safe" during the interaction. At trial he said he had not felt safe and could not explain why the form had been completed that way.
The Crown also alleged that the final punch was sufficiently forceful to break Bevins' tooth and cut the sergeant's knuckle. He accepted that the cut was probably caused by contact with her tooth.
Defence: Force Was Justified
Defence lawyer David Pawson argued that Bevins had been belligerent and difficult and that the sergeant was justified in using force.
The defence emphasised the speed of the incident and argued that the officer's decisions should not be dissected with hindsight. The jury heard that Bevins had earlier had a lighter removed after threatening to set a mattress alight, although she testified that she had not intended to do so and had been trying to attract officers' attention.
The defence also disputed the Crown's account of how Bevins sustained her injuries. Its medical evidence was that bruising did not necessarily demonstrate the amount of force used. Pawson argued that the jury could not exclude the possibility that some injuries occurred when Bevins' face struck the edge of the stainless-steel bed while she was being taken to the floor.
Bevins had herself been charged with assaulting police. That charge was dismissed following a judge-alone trial.
Why the Acquittal Matters
Communications discussed during the trial indicated jurors had difficulty with the question of intent. After the jury reported being split, it was permitted to return a majority verdict. Eleven jurors ultimately found the sergeant not guilty.
That verdict is legally significant. It means the prosecution did not establish the criminal charge to the standard required for conviction.
It does not mean that no punches occurred or that Bevins was uninjured. Those facts were not in dispute in the same way. Nor does an acquittal automatically answer every possible employment, disciplinary, policy or independent-oversight question arising from police conduct. Those processes can involve different questions and different standards from a criminal prosecution.
Police Powers and Reasonable Force
New Zealand Police policy recognises that officers can use reasonable force in defined circumstances, including overcoming resistance or protecting people from harm. Police also state that physical force should be used when persuasion, advice and warning are insufficient to obtain cooperation, with the safety of the person, the public and officers forming part of the decision.
The wider data provides important context. Police reported that only 0.3 percent of their 2.62 million recorded interactions with the public in 2024 involved force or tactical options, approximately one in every 338 events.
Low overall use does not remove the need to scrutinise individual incidents. Custody is a particularly important environment because the person detained is under state control and has limited ability to leave the situation.
The Independent Police Conduct Authority has previously reached conclusions about custody force separately from criminal court outcomes. In an Auckland Custody Unit case published in August 2025, the IPCA found force used by a police sergeant and custody officer was unjustified even though assault charges against the officers had earlier been dismissed. The Authority also found the detainee's standard of care fell below acceptable levels.
That case is separate from the Bay of Plenty prosecution and should not be treated as evidence about this sergeant. It demonstrates, however, why a criminal verdict and an independent assessment of police conduct are not necessarily the same inquiry.
Accountability After the Verdict
The source reporting does not establish whether the IPCA has completed or intends to publish a separate finding on this particular incident. It would therefore be premature to state that the acquittal is the final institutional assessment of everything that occurred in the cell.
The criminal process has answered one question: the jury did not find the sergeant guilty of injuring with intent to injure.
For public accountability, further questions are distinct. Was the force consistent with Police policy? Was the incident reported and reviewed appropriately? Did internal systems identify any lessons? Is there an IPCA process or disciplinary outcome separate from the criminal prosecution?
Those questions should be answered from the relevant Police or IPCA records rather than inferred from either the acquittal or the injuries alone.
Will This Make New Zealand Stronger?
Will this in fact make New Zealand stronger? Trust in policing depends on two principles operating together: officers must be able to use lawful and proportionate force when genuinely necessary, and citizens in state custody must be protected from unjustified force.
Weakening either side carries a cost. Police who cannot act decisively when confronted with genuine violence cannot protect the public effectively. Equally, a system that does not rigorously review force used against detained people risks damaging public confidence in the institutions entrusted with coercive power.
The Bay of Plenty case demonstrates why evidence, CCTV, reporting requirements, criminal courts and independent oversight each have different roles. The jury has delivered its verdict on the criminal charge. Any broader assessment of police practice should now depend on documented findings from the institutions responsible for reviewing conduct, rather than assumptions about what the acquittal itself proves.
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