I thought I was going to die, cop tells court

AFTER a violent struggle which resulted in Constable Diane Squires firing four shots at a man, her gun jammed and she felt a sharp pain. It was at that point she believed she was going to die, she has told Brisbane Supreme Court.

Constable Squires has given evidence in the trial of Daniel Luke White Mayne, the man accused of attempting to murder her in an underground Gold Coast carpark.

In what shaped as a routine arrest in Surfers Paradise over suspected stolen goods in January 2017, she noticed White Mayne had “turned back the way he came” when he spotted her and partner Constable Simeon Pickering.

White Mayne violently struggled with the pair and was able to grab a revolver from his bag, Constable Squires told the court yesterday.

She said she drew her own firearm as White Mayne had his gun “pointed directly at my head”.

“All I remember was seeing the gun very close to my face,” she said. “That was when I, in shock, stepped back and drew my firearm. My recollection is immediately firing.”

Prosecutors said Constable Squires shot at White Mayne four times, hitting him twice. One bullet pierced his thigh and scrotum, the other his foot.

She claimed she heard the accused yelling “you shot me”, before he allegedly fired a single shot at her, which led to his charge of attempted murder.

With her Glock jammed and suffering sharp pain from a torn disc in her back and leg bruising, Constable Squires thought she was wounded. She believed White Mayne would come back and finish her off.

“I thought then I was going to die,” she testified.

The trial heard the altercation ended when White Mayne attempted to escape, going into the stairwell where he encountered Constable Pickering.

White Mayne’s defence claims he never intended to kill Constable Squires and was only trying to scare her away.

The trial continues.