The Melbourne broker admitted to the rare charge of outraging public decency for mocking four police officers as they lay dying after an auto accident
A Melbourne mortgage broker has pleaded guilty to the rare charge of outraging public decency for filming and taunting police officers as they lay dying at a crash scene.
Richard Pusey, 42, also pleaded guilty to drug and other offences related to a traffic stop last year, according to a BBC report.
Pusey was pulled over by four police officers for speeding on a Melbourne freeway last year. While the officers were making his arrest, all four were struck by a passing truck that had swerved out of its lane. Senior constables Lynette Taylor and Kevin King and constables Glen Humphris and Josh Prestney died at the scene, according to the BBC.
Pusey, who had been standing a few metres away, was not injured – but after the crash he pulled out his phone and began filming the dying officers.
“There you go. Amazing, absolutely amazing,” he said, his words captured by one of the officers’ body cameras. “All I wanted to do was go home and have some sushi.”
Pusey then used profanity to blame the officers for ruining his Porsche. After filming for more than three minutes, he fled the scene. He was arrested at his home after the crash, and was initially charged with speeding, drug possession and reckless conduct.
However, further investigation revealed that Pusey had made a video and shared it among friends, the BBC reported. Pusey’s video sparked public outrage, with Victoria’s police minister calling it “completely sickening.”
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It’s not the first time Pusey, owner of Switch Now Home Loans, has garnered negative attention for his behaviour. In 2016, he was featured on the television programme A Current Affair, in which he was accused of ripping off tradesmen and even abusing their families over business disputes, according to news.com.au.
At one point, the programme filmed Pusey screaming profanities at a tradesman’s wife, who had just returned from the hospital after undergoing cancer treatment.
“Get some more f***ing cancer, you stupid f***ing b***,” he told the woman.
Pusey is also facing charges over allegations that he threatened to kill a woman and put a noose around her neck in December, according to a report by The Age.
