Justice Debbie Mortimer on Monday awarded $220,000 damages to once-jailed Palm Island rioter Lex Wotton and two of his family members for the pain endured by early-morning raids involving SERT officers in November 2004.
Mr Wotton, his wife and mother brought the ground-breaking racial discrimination class action on behalf of Palm Islanders, which alleged police failures after Cameron (Mulrunji) Doomadgee's death would not have happened in a non-isolated community that was not predominantly Aboriginal.
"I have found they (police officers) conducted themselves... with a sense of impunity, impervious to the reactions of Palm Islanders," Justice Mortimer said in a written summary on Monday.
I have found that police acted in these ways because they were dealing with an Aboriginal community.
Justice Mortimer found police officers treated Mulrunji's arresting officer Senior Sergeant Hurley inappropriately and failed to communicate with islanders in the tense week after the local man's death.
She said accounts from Aboriginal witnesses implicating Senior Sergeant Hurley in the tragedy were discounted and that the use of SERT officers for post-riot raids was "unnecessary, disproportionate and undertaken as a show of force against local people who had protested about the conduct of police".
The Queensland Police Union rejected the findings outright, with president Ian Leavers saying the response would have been the same if the situation happened in "downtown Brisbane".
Lex Wotton (centre) his brother Anthony Wotton, (left) and his barrister Josh Creamer arriving at the Federal Circuit Court in Townsville to give evidence. Source: AAP
"I personally know many police who served and continue to serve on both Palm Island at that time and in Indigenous communities and I know they are not racist," he said.
The rioting was sparked by a preliminary autopsy report that found Mulrunji's death was an accident, despite him having four broken ribs and his liver almost cleaved in two.
The police station and barracks, as well as a home occupied by Senior Sergeant Hurley, were razed during the riot.
The trial previously heard balaclava-clad officers marched through the small community of fewer than 2000 residents and pointed large guns at children's heads during early-morning post-riot raids.
Mr Wotton was tasered, allegedly without warning, in front of his children.
A Lex Wotton suppoter wave a banner during this morning court hearing Source: AAP
"Women and children in and around the houses attended by SERT officers, who had nothing to do with the protests and fires, were terrified," Justice Mortimer said.
"Those women and children who gave evidence have suffered a lasting detrimental impact from the SERT operation."
The State of Queensland and commissioner of police denied all the applicants' allegations of discrimination.
Justice Mortimer did not order an apology but directed the Commissioner of Police be required to consider if one should be made.
A jury acquitted Senior Sergeant Hurley of Mulrunji's manslaughter in 2007.
He was convicted last Friday of assaulting a man he grabbed by the throat and pointed a Taser at during a roadside arrest on the Gold Coast in 2013.
