The Crown has accused three police officers charged with manslaughter of laziness and a lack of care and concern in its closing argument at the High Court in New Plymouth.
The three defendants were on duty in June 2019 when 55-year-old farmer Allen Ball was arrested and later died in a cell at Hāwera Police Station.
Crown prosecutor Cherie Clarke told the court the attitude of the three defendants was not that of "reasonable" officers.
"A reasonable police officer would not have been joking about Mr Ball being dead," she said.
She also spoke to evidence heard in the trial that people in custody were often taken to the Hāwera Police Station, just five minutes down the road, and that a reasonable police officer would have recognised that Mr Ball required urgent medical care.
"A person who cannot be woken should never, ever be in a New Zealand police cell anywhere in the country."
The Crown says Allen Ball did not respond to voices, being shaken, pain techniques, or even when a police cell phone was accidentally dropped on his head.
The Crown says the defendants knew Allen Ball was unresponsive, but instead entered his health condition into the police system as "partially unresponsive".
At that stage, an alert popped up advising the officers to arrange transport for Mr Ball to hospital, which they did not do.
"They took a risk, from this point in time, with Mr Ball's health."
Throughout the trial, the court has heard Allen Ball had consumed at least a litre of bourbon and was largely unresponsive when six people carried him into the cell.
The Defence maintains the three officers made a mistake that night in thinking Allen Ball was simply "sleeping it off".
"They are directed by police policy not to wake sleeping detainees," the first of the Defence lawyers, Susan Hughes QC, told the jury.
Hughes QC used her closing argument to reiterate the glowing reputation of her client, describing their integrity and honesty as "beyond reproach".
"[Suppressed] wouldn't avoid their duty by being lazy, and wouldn't have avoided a need to take Mr Ball to hospital if [they] had seen that need," she said.
"Why would [they] risk a career [they were] so justifiably proud of, to treat Mr Ball so callously. Why would [they] do that?”
The court also heard from Defence lawyer Andrew Laurenson, who told the jury his client, who received a police award for bravery in 2018, had no reason not to take Ball to hospital.
"The Crown has said that they were indifferent, that they laughed. They didn't care. That's just absolute nonsense… They simply got it wrong," he told the court.
The final closing argument in the Defence will be heard tomorrow.
The trial is into its third week.
