David Eastman threatened to kill his neighbour "and the bastard police as well" in the months before he's accused of killing a top Australian police chief.
The Canberra man has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Colin Winchester in 1989, following a string of complaints against police in the months before.
On day four of the trial the ACT Supreme Court heard Eastman, now 72, had been charged with assaulting a neighbour in December 1987 over where the neighbour's mother was parking her car.
However, Eastman claimed to the police it was his neighbour and the mother who had assaulted him and the neighbour recruited witnesses to lie to police.
Prosecution lawyer Lucy Hocking read from letters between Eastman and the Commonwealth Ombudsman handling the complaints, including three in December 1987 and more in 1988 about how the initial complaints were handled.
Among them, Eastman claimed an officer had described a statement he gave to them as "the greatest load of rubbish I've ever heard" and called him a "40-year-old sticky beak".
The complaints were escalated though the ranks to Mr Winchester, who had discussed them with him.
"Now I want to kill my neighbour, his friends and the bastard police as well," Ms Hocking read from a letter Eastman wrote of the complaints to his German pen friend Irene Fink in early 1988.
Mr Winchester was shot twice at close range as he parked in a driveway next to his Canberra home about 9.15pm on January 10, 1989.
Prosecutors allege Eastman developed a murderous hatred of Mr Winchester because police would not drop the assault charges against him, which he believed could risk his return to work in the public service.
A jury of 16 men and women heard on Thursday that Eastman, a former Treasury economist, had been in a decade-long dispute with Treasury about his previous employment and that he'd had a claim for $500,000 compensation rejected.
Eastman's defence barrister George Georgiou told the jury in his opening statement on Wednesday that the threats against police were an expression of frustration and didn't mean he wanted to murder Mr Winchester.
The trial before Justice Murray Kellam is continuing.
Australian Associated Press
