Reagan Chown: Man convicted of killing WA Police Constable Anthony Woods handed more jail time

The man jailed for mowing down a young police officer has been handed extra prison time after sailing dangerously close to being declared a drug trafficker as well as a cop killer. Just 12 days before Reagan Ainsley Chown slammed a stolen car into reverse and fatally injured 28 year old Constable Anthony Woods during an arrest attempt in June 2023, he was busted with almost an ounce of cocaine. The now 25 year old is serving a term of 15 years and six months for manslaughter, and appeared in the District Court of WA on Thursday via videolink from Albany Prison. The court was told Chown was found with 27.7 grams of the drug — 0.3g below the amount deemed trafficable — after police pulled him over in Maddington for driving with false licence plates. Officers also found clipseal bags, scales and a small amount of methamphetamine, and a “tick list” was discovered at his home. He claimed the drugs were for his own personal use. Defence counsel Peter Ash argued, and Judge Darren Renton accepted, that his notorious client had pooled funds with others to buy the cocaine in bulk and get a better deal, something he was “in the habit” of doing. So while Chown was supplying the drugs, he “had none of the trappings of a successful dealer”, driving a beaten-up unregistered vehicle and handing over the passcode to his badly cracked mobile phone to police. Asked if Chown had debts, Mr Ash referred to bikies and his client having “left the group”, adding that motorcycles “should be handed in on resignation”. The lawyer said Chown was “down and out” despite having completed two apprenticeships as a welder then a diesel mechanic, with his drug use costing him jobs. “He was a person who was so affected by drugs, they were controlling his mind, his life,” the lawyer said. Judge Renton noted Chown was meth-addled when the fatal tragedy unfolded less than a fortnight later. “No doubt that whole experience has been very salutary to you and been a motivation to eliminate drugs from your life,” the judge said. “It’s probably fair to say drugs caused a spectacular negative spiral in your world.” He sentenced Chown to 18 months behind bars for possession of prohibited drugs with intent to sell or supply but reduced it to nine months for totality reasons and made him eligible for parole, meaning he will only have to serve half. That’s on top of the minimum 13 and a half years jail term Chown must serve over Const. Woods’ death. The officer, who had only just passed his probation, was the passenger in a police pursuit of Chown and Tasered him after he was forced to stop in an Ascot cul de sac. As the stolen car suddenly reversed, Const. Woods was trapped by the driver’s door and dragged underneath. At a Supreme Court trial in May, Chown claimed he lost control of his body after the electric shock — stiffening out and pressing the accelerator. A jury took less than three hours of deliberating to find him guilty of manslaughter. The WA Police Union was outraged the charge was downgraded from murder.