Closing arguments are scheduled to begin Thursday in the trial of a former Regina police officer accused of assaulting a man during an arrest last year.

Robert Power, a five-year veteran of the force, was charged with assault causing bodily following an incident in May 2012.

Court heard Wednesday that Power, 40, kicked an intoxicated man in the stomach during an arrest outside a detox centre near downtown Regina.

The alleged victim, 44-year-old Edward Stonechild, fell backward and hit his head on a concrete wall after the officer kicked him.

Stonechild was treated for a wound to the back of his head in hospital and was released later that day.

Power testified that he saw an intoxicated Stonechild staggering along the sidewalk near the detox centre on the day of the incident.

Power said he told Stonechild that if he didn’t go to the detox centre, he would be arrested and put in jail.

He testified that Stonechild then said “(expletive) you, do you want to fight?” and he replied “no Eddie, I don’t want to fight.”

Power said he got out of his patrol car and was putting on a pair of protective gloves when Stonechild quickly came toward him with raised fists.

“It looked like he was trying to harm me, to hit me,” Power said.

He said by the time he realized Stonechild was coming at him, he was “almost on top of me,” and he kicked Stonechild in the stomach in self-defence.

Power said he was trying to push Stonechild back to a safe distance, and he never intended to injure him.

He told the court he believes he couldn’t have done anything differently in the “high-stress” situation.

Power said when he noticed Stonechild was bleeding from the back of his head, he immediately called an ambulance and grabbed some bandages from his patrol car.

Stonechild also took the stand Wednesday. He said he didn’t recognize the people in surveillance footage of the incident, and didn’t remember what happened.

Court heard that Power had arrested Stonechild for public intoxication several times in the past. He is on a Regina police list of chronic alcoholics, and is known to drink hand sanitizer, hair spray, rubbing alcohol and mouthwash.

According to CPIC, Canada’s national police database, Stonechild is considered violent and contagious, having tested positive for both HIV and Hepatitis C.

Jon Heathcote, an emergency medical technician at the detox centre, said Stonechild is a regular at the facility.

Heathcote told the court that Stonechild’s behaviour was unpredictable at times, and that sometimes he utters threats “out of the blue.”

“He’ll go from pleasant one day to miserable the next,” Heathcote said.

Following the incident, Power told police he had pushed Stonechild instead of kicking him. However, when fellow officers confronted him with surveillance video of the incident, he admitted to kicking the man.

Power was subsequently dismissed from the force for deceit, a decision he plans to appeal.

Crown prosecutor Bill Burge suggested that Power wrote in a report that he pushed Stonechild because that was the amount of force he should have used.

“You wrote it up this way because you couldn’t justify the actions that you did use,” Burge said during cross-examination.

The defence also called Joel Johnston, a use of force expert from Vancouver, to the stand.

Johnston studied the surveillance video and concluded that Power used appropriate force given the situation.

He said Stonechild clearly caught Power off guard when he rushed him while the officer was putting on his gloves.

Power’s use-of-force options were limited by the short amount of time he had to react, Johnston added.

“When you don’t have a great deal of time to react…you simply respond almost instinctively,” he said.

“That’s the crux of this matter.”