Distrust in Australian police among Queensland’s Indian diaspora is set to deepen after an officer was caught on body camera hurling expletives at an Uber driver, leading the victim to sue the force in federal court.

The officer said, “f*****g Indians, mate, they are a bunch of f*****g perverts” to a colleague in 2023, before they charged the man with committing an indecent act for allegedly masturbating in public, court records showed.

The department said the footage was recorded accidentally and denied that any of the officers’ actions were motivated by “race”, “colour” or “national ethnic origin”.

However, that argument failed to convince Australia’s race discrimination commissioner Giridharan Sivaraman, who called the officer’s comments “clearly a racist statement”.

“I think the Indian community would be very distressed,” Sivaraman said, as quoted by The Guardian.

“We know that migrant communities are sometimes reluctant to engage with the police because they feel that they won’t be heard, that they won’t be believed, that they’re not represented,” he said.