A police officer who drove his patrol car into an electric bike did so to protect its teenage driver from "serious harm", a court heard.
Pc Timothy Bradshaw, 55, was charged with causing serious injury by dangerous driving after allegedly steering into the rear of an e-bike ridden by Mason McGarry in Bognor Regis, West Sussex, in November 2022.
The then 17-year old was said to have been "goading" Pc Bradshaw and his accompanying officer with "unpleasant hand gestures" before the incident. He suffered a fractured tibia in the crash.
Jurors at Portsmouth Crown Court on Monday afternoon heard that Mr McGarry was "well known to police". He had been driving without a helmet and with a passenger on the pillion.
Footage played to the court showed Mr McGarry driving the e-bike towards a T-junction before turning left onto a residential road lined with parked cars.
Pc Bradshaw, of Sussex Police, could be seen following the e-bike and colliding with it from behind, throwing Mr McGarry and his passenger to the ground.
The passenger remained on the ground but Mr McGarry "hobbled" away to the side of the road, the court was told. He subsequently underwent surgery for a fractured tibia.
The court heard that Pc Bradshaw, explaining his decision to investigating officers, said: "I did this to protect them from serious harm."
Pc Bradshaw pleaded not guilty to the single charge.
Charles Gabb, prosecuting, told jurors that although Pc Bradshaw and his fellow officer might have been left feeling "annoyed or irritated" by the earlier antics of Mr McGarry, this was an "occupational hazard".
He said: "Young men on e-bikes have been a bit of a nuisance and that is putting it mildly... What you don't do is take the law into your own hands."
He said Pc Bradshaw had made no checks with his fellow officer and had not given any warning to Mr McGarry, such as flashing his blue lights or sounding his siren, before colliding with the e-bike.
Addressing the jurors, Mr Gabb said there was no justification for Pc Bradshaw's actions, "however annoying these people might have been in the past, and certainly Mr McGarry was well known to the police".
Mr Gabb said Pc Bradshaw had no way of knowing that the teenagers would not be "catapulted down the road" and potentially killed, and the suggestion Pc Bradshaw was using "reasonable force" was "something of a nonsense".
He added that however many times Mr McGarry might have been "a pain in the backside" or had appeared before the courts, "nobody deserves to be treated like that".
Pc Bradshaw's family, including his wife and son, watched the proceedings from the public gallery with a police federation representative.
Judge Melville KC granted Mr Bradshaw unconditional bail.