A Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice of­fi­cer, who has been sus­pend­ed since Jan­u­ary 2021 af­ter be­ing charged with beat­ing his then-girl­friend, was freed of the charge yes­ter­day af­ter the State re­peat­ed­ly failed to pro­duce wit­ness­es to sub­stan­ti­ate the al­le­ga­tion, in­clud­ing the com­plainant.

The case against the of­fi­cer, Jar­rell God­dard, was that on Ju­ly 3, 2020, while the pair were seat­ed in a car along Al­cazar Street, St Clair, he al­leged­ly beat his girl­friend with his po­lice-is­sued ba­ton fol­low­ing an ar­gu­ment over in­fi­deli­ty in their re­la­tion­ship. The woman al­leged­ly sus­tained in­juries to the right side of her face and up­per back.

The in­ci­dent was ini­tial­ly re­port­ed to the Mor­vant Po­lice Sta­tion be­fore be­ing trans­ferred to the Gen­der-Based Vi­o­lence Unit.