Price could be heard on bodyworn camera footage, shown in court, telling Gonen: “Just to let you know he’s been spitting in my face.”
Gonen said she was worried about him spitting, so put a coat collar by his mouth, the court heard.
The boy’s eyes lowered and he became less responsive, with Price heard on footage saying: “You alright, mate? We’re just trying to help you, mate.”
Price then said to Gonen: “Yeah, he’s hot to touch.”
In further footage shown to the court, Gonen then appears to slap the boy’s face several times while holding him by the hair, causing his eyes to flicker.
Discussing her actions, Gonen told the court: “Any time there was a concern for his life, I decided the best course of action was to gently slap him on his cheeks.
“At that moment in time I thought I was saving somebody’s life. I thought I was preventing a medical emergency from occurring.”
Judge Briony Clarke said by her count the boy was slapped 16 times, and it was clear in her view that Gonen thought the boy was “faking it”, then had “sought to explain her behaviour by reference to a known medical condition suggested to her at the time by another colleague”.
