A suspended police officer has been granted bail as he tries to overturn findings that he violently and wrongfully arrested a woman and falsely made out she assaulted him.
Mark Anthony Follington, 62, will live under house arrest at a semi-rural property southwest of Sydney after District Court Judge Dina Yehia determined he wasn't an unacceptable risk to the community.
"The danger he poses to the community is if he were to take up his responsibilities as a police officer again, given the nature of the offences," she said.
"He's not going to do that, he's going to be under house arrest basically."
Follington has served two weeks of his two-and-a-half-year jail term for five crimes, including doing an act intending to pervert the course of justice and evidence tampering intending to mislead a court.
The officer, who is suspended without pay, denies deliberately concocting a false story that was used to charge Sydney woman Anya Bradford with assaulting police in May 2019.
His appeal against his convictions and sentence is due to be heard on March 14 and 15, 2022.
"It would be highly unlikely even if successful on his appeal that he would be returning to the NSW Force," his barrister Ray Hood said on Tuesday.
Mr Hood said there was no conduct that could support the Crown's contention he posed a threat to the community or had tried to contact witnesses.
Judge Yehia said the offences were "extremely serious, constituting the gravest breach of duty" and the offender would face certain jail time if his conviction appeal failed.
But he would be able to better prepare for the appeal in the community, given COVID-19 restrictions in prison.
He can leave home only to attend medical or legal appointments or to report daily to local police.
Any breach could result in his son forfeiting $10,000.
Follington was convicted in May after a Sydney magistrate found the officer's official narrative of the May 2019 arrest was intentionally false.
The officer had testified he became suspicious Ms Bradford had a warrant out for her arrest as she didn't look at him or say hello when he conducted ID checks in a Liverpool pub's gaming room.
"To me, that starts to send a signal to me that this person is trying to hide from me," he told the court in 2020.
A scuffle led to Follington shoving Ms Bradford's head into an ATM, before a second assault occurred after his junior partner successfully arrested and handcuffed the woman, magistrate Michael Crompton found.
Ms Bradford faced charges of resisting arrest and assaulting police until senior police reviewed the case.
She is set to sue over NSW Police for compensation.
