Bryan Biddle, 63, had sued for damages, accusing the police of assault and false imprisonment.

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Kaye yesterday rejected Mr Biddle’s claims and ordered that he pay the officers’ legal costs.

Mr Biddle claimed he had suffered severe pain to his rectum, and pain and swelling to his genitals after he was needlessly and wrongfully sprayed on his lower body during an altercation on April 19, 2011, with officers Michelle Dowell, Joel Hughes and John Trebilcock.

The officers went to arrest Mr Biddle at a Violet Town caravan park owned and operated by Mr Biddle’s wife Dorothy, known as Dot, after it was alleged he had breached an interim intervention order taken out by a woman with whom he had been having an affair.

In his judgment yesterday, Justice Kaye said Mr Biddle had been married to Dot since 1971 and the couple had had three children.

Mr Biddle he had had problems with alcohol for many years.

The judge said Dot had run the Honeysuckle Caravan Park at Violet Town from 2005 and hired Antoinette Gerada as a cleaner two years later.

“In due course, Gerada became a regular drinking companion with Bryan,” the judge said.

“Their relationship evolved and Bryan began and affair with her.

“Dorothy terminated Gerada’s employment, but Gerada continued to come to the caravan park to drink and associate with the plaintiff (Mr Biddle).

“Ultimately, in July 2008, Dorothy excluded the plaintiff from their home at the caravan park, and he went to live in the house then owned by himself and Dorothy in Euroa.”

Justice Kaye said Mr Biddle had been prescribed antidepressant medication and his mental health problems were not helped by excessive drinking.

After the Euroa house was sold in 2010, Mr Biddle returned to live with Dot at the caravan park but they no longer lived as husband and wife.

“After his return to the caravan park, the plaintiff continued to associate with Gerada, and he continued to drink large quantities of alcohol each day.

“Dorothy visited Gerada in October, 2010, to ask her to cease giving him alcohol. In response, Gerada violently assaulted Dorothy.”

Justice Kaye said that in early 2011, the relationship between Mr Biddle and Ms Gerada broke down and she had obtained an interim intervention order against him.

Ms Gerada rang police on the night of April 19 to say a man she believed was Mr Biddle was outside her home, in breach of the intervention order, so police went there to arrest him.

The judge said that after hearing evidence from the police officers during the 12-day civil trial held in Shepparton, he was satisfied that the officers had believed, on reasonable grounds, that Mr Biddle had breached the intervention order and were entitled to arrest him without a warrant.

When they arrested him in his bedroom, he was told why he was being taken into custody; and that the officers did not use unnecessary and disproportionate force when arresting him.

Justice Kaye ordered Mr Biddle, who the judge noted had not had a drink for at least two years, to pay the legal costs of the trial, which could amount to up to $100,000.