New police bodycam footage has emerged of two officers brutally attacking and pepper-spraying a woman’s genitals as she laid naked on a road during a psychotic episode.
It comes as the identity of the woman was made public for the first time.
Nichole Allen and Sharee Castagna were sickened by the footage in which NSW Police officers, Senior Constable Nathan Black and Constable Timothy John Trautsch brutalised their cousin Jodi Knott, then 48.
The pair fought long and hard for the footage to be released to the public after Ms Knott died of cancer 18 months after the vile 2023 attack.
They want their cousin’s legacy to be better police training when responding to incidents involving acute mental illness.
Ms Allen broke down when the pair watched the bodycam footage for the first time.
‘They didn’t care that there were cameras around or that their bodycam footage was on,’ Ms Castagna told ABC’s Four Corners.
‘That says to me that there is a significant cultural issue within the police … that this type of behaviour is OK.’
Jodi Knott was brutalised during a shocking attack by two police officers
The attack was captured on police body-worn camera footage
Constable Timothy John Trautsch was captured laughing during the brutal attack
Ms Allen added: ‘She had nothing on her. She was naked, she’s vulnerable.
‘What is she going to do to them? Two burly blokes rocking up like that. She’s not going to do anything.
‘They chose to continuously brutalise her and attack her every step, at every moment. She was down on that ground and they just continued to lay into her. It’s horrific.’
In January 2023, plain-clothed officers Black and Trautsch were called to an industrial area at Emu Plains to conduct a welfare check and found Ms Knott naked, crouching under a tree.
Black put on blue surgical gloves before approaching her.
‘It’s not about being scared,’ he was heard in the footage.
‘It is about being scared of you,’ Ms Knott screamed.
‘I’m terrified of you people, go away.
“You can’t physically beat me. F*** off.’
Jodi Knott’s cousins Nichole Allen and Sharee Castagna were sickened by the footage
The officer emptied his pepper spray bottles on Jodi Knott
Jodi Knott was disorientated after being unable to gain access to medication
The bodycam showed Black and Trautsch stomping on Ms Knott as she laid on the road.
Black pepper-sprayed her grazes.
Ms Knott was also sprayed at close range in the face, a dangerous practice outlawed because of the risk of eye injuries.
‘Get it in her eyes, get it in her eyes,’ one officer can be heard saying in footage recorded by Black’s bodycam.
The officers were also heard discussed other measures to brutalise Ms Knott after they both emptied their pepper-spray canisters.
‘We need a taser,’ Black said.
‘God, please. I’m strong God, but not without you,’ Ms Knott yelled as Trautsch is heard laughing.
‘Oi, is there a long baton in the car?’ Black asked.
‘Yeah, that’ll settle her down,’ Trautsch responds.
The police officers had been called to a street in Emu Plains to conduct a welfare check
Constable Timothy John Trautsch leaves court in July 2025
Both officers admitted using unlawful force before they were jailed last July.
The assault happened just 300 metres from Amber Laurel Correctional Centre where Ms Knott, then 48, had been released earlier that day.
She had become disoriented while walking towards Emu Plains train station and ended up in a cul-de-sac.
Footage previously played at their sentence hearing at Penrith District Court in July last year showed the pair’s violence escalating during the 18-minute assault against Jodi.
Court documents reveal Ms Knott – who suffered from schizophrenia – had been prescribed an antipsychotic but was not taking the medication at the time.
Black kicked her in the head and dragged her by the hair along the bitumen which left Ms Knott’s back badly grazed.
‘If you touch me, you are f***ed and I mean f***ed. They’re up there watching,’ she told the two officers while sitting naked on a grassy curb.
‘You don’t know about the aliens, do you?’
Senior Constable Nathan Black leaves court before he was eventually jailed
CCTV from a nearby business also captured the brutal attack
The incident that landed Jodi in prison happened two days earlier after she had tried to fill a prescription but the chemist called police when she started shouting.
When police arrived there was a struggle, and she was pepper-sprayed and arrested.
Black pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm, using a prohibited weapon without a permit and three counts of common assault.
He also admitted two counts of intentionally publishing protected information after sending snippets of the body-worn footage to another police officer.
In a message exchange, he described how the pair had emptied two cans of pepper spray on the woman.
‘She was f***ed, the whole body-worn is so good, shows her being f***ed. Nurses are lodging a complaint. [A senior officer] is investigating because we caved her, but she had a hold of the cuffs, and we had no other options,’ Black wrote.
Black also sent two clips from the bodycam of the incident to the colleague. Police body-worn video is considered protected information, so sending it was a crime.
Trautsch pleaded guilty to one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, three counts of common assault and one count of using a prohibited weapon without a permit.
Both officers no longer work for the NSW Police Force.
NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Dave Hudson said it was one of the worst cases of misconduct he had seen in his more than 40 years as a police officer when the incident was first made public.
In August last year, NSW District Court Judge Graham Turnbull called the ordeal a ‘deliberate and ongoing attack’.
‘It’s certainly, to my mind, a matter that sits quite clearly as a most egregious breach of the law,’ Judge Turnbull said.
He added that the use of pepper spray was ‘clearly calculated’.
‘To inflict the maximum pain and discomfort while purporting to try and free some handcuffs from her hand,’ he said.
‘[The accused] showed complete and utter contempt for the victim… It seems they just didn’t care at all.’
Judge Turnbull added that Trautsch’s demeanour ‘unfortunately is consistent with some evident wry humour on his part’.
Black was jailed for a maximum of five years and nine months with a minimum of three years and three months.
Trautsch was handed a five-year and nine-month maximum term with a minimum of three years.
Ms Knott was involved in another incident with police three months after she was brutalised when officers were called to her Moorebank home over reports she was pacing her driveway waving a kitchen knife.
Officers arrived, tasered her twice and arrested her.
Police did not take a specialist mental health clinician, known as a PACER nurse, to any of these call-outs.
The story will be aired on ABC’s Four Corners this Monday night at 8.30pm.
