A man has pleaded guilty to striking a police officer several times while in custody at a Lake Macquarie police station last week.
Hayden Ballard's attack on the sergeant on the afternoon of June 25 was "unprovoked and vicious", a statement of facts tendered to Toronto Local Court on Tuesday said.
Ballard, 21, pleaded guilty to two counts of intimidating an officer and one charge of assaulting an officer causing actual bodily harm.
He also pleaded guilty to two separate previous charges - related to the theft of $249 worth of alcohol from a bottle shop and intentionally/recklessly destroying two internal doors at a Windale home.
According to the statement of facts, Ballard was in custody for the intentional/reckless damage charge when the attack occurred.
Ballard told two officers - a sergeant and a senior constable - he would follow them home and urged them to take their uniforms off and enter his cell.
When he was being returned to the cell after being taken to the charge room, Ballard punched the sergeant in the mouth.
The officer grabbed Ballard by the throat and pushed him back, but the 21-year-old struck the sergeant three more times to the face and head.
Magistrate Andrew Eckhold on Tuesday granted Ballard conditional bail and sentenced him to a community corrections order in relation to the theft - he left the assault and intimidation charges part heard for sentencing in August.
Magistrate Eckhold said Ballard was "vulnerable", with a relatively clean record and while the incident at the police station was "very serious", he said the guilty pleas and bail application were "extremely unusual".
He said the assault "seemed to have emerged from nowhere" and that it appeared "drug-induced psychosis" was at play.
