The coronial inquest into the death of Kumanjayi Walker has heard text messages between Constable Zach Rolfe and other NT Police officers, in which the officers described the Aboriginal people they were policing in Central Australia as “coons”, “grubby fucks” and “neanderthals”, and that the police enjoyed using force to “towel them up”.

The text messages were read by counsel assisting the Coroner Peggy Dwyer to Sgt Anne Jolley, the current officer-in-charge at Yuendumu, who said she was “disgusted” by the “racist” content.

In one text, dated March 10, 2019, Ms Dwyer said it appeared Constable Rolfe had bragged to another officer about using force on Aboriginal people at a remote community, texting another officer to say, “I’m out at Borroloola, a random community on the coast because they’re rioting but we came up last time they did this, and smashed the whole community. So this time as soon as we arrived, they started behaving.”

In other messages he reportedly said that he had a “licence to towel up the locals” which Ms Dwyer suggested meant using force.

In another text dated April 27, 2019, Ms Dwyer said a fellow officer messaged Constable Rolfe to tell him, “Heard you had a rough arvo yesterday, grubby fucks”, to which Constable Rolfe responded “No bra, just slightly annoying haha. Coons, man”.

Ms Dwyer said she had found the messages “shocking” and asked if Sgt Jolley was also shocked to “hear a serving member of the police force, in 2019, use that like really racist, disgusting term to refer to an Aboriginal person?”

Sgt Jolley agreed that the comments were “disgusting”.

In another text, from July 2019, Constable Rolfe was messaged by a fellow officer: “The cops out here have fucked this town. They have been letting the niggas drink wherever they want ha ha,” the other officer who was not named wrote. Constable Rolfe replied: “Bush cops are fucking shit house.”

In yet another text, Constable Rolfe wrote: “Just don’t get why all this work has got me to the point where it’s my job to look after neanderthals who drink too much alcohol haha.”

“We’ll hear from Constable Rolfe about what he was meaning to infer,” Ms Dwyer said. “But if by the use of neanderthal he’s meaning to refer to anybody who is of Aboriginal descent, do you agree that that is disgusting and disgraceful and wholly unacceptable?”

“That’s disgusting,” Sgt Jolley replied.

The other officers were not named because Ms Dwyer said they had not yet provided evidence to the inquest. Ms Dwyer had previously stated she was not intending to “demonise” Constable Rolfe or other officers by presenting the messages.

Ian Freckleton, representing NT Police officers, excluding Constable Rolfe, said in court the texts being read should not be understood to be reflective of the entire police force and that Ms Dwyer’s reading of the texts to Sgt Jolley was “sensational”.

“It is important to note that the mis-impression not be propagated that this modest number of offensive utterances by text messages be imputed to the whole police force,” he said.

“To do so is to run the risk of diminishing the respect in which the force is generally held, the trust that is reposed in them, and if that occurred it would be a most unfortunate outcome of this inquest.

“Those are extremely regrettable expressions that have been employed by the officers concerned and you will not hear any justification or any rationalisation of those from the Northern Territory Police force. And we do represent some of those members, and you will hear from them what their views are, as to what they have communicated.”

Mr Freckleton added that “some” of the officers quoted in the text messages would be “expressing significant contrition” about the comments, and would state they were “not reflective of who they are, what their attitudes are, or both the attitudes of the force or their colleagues”.

Lawyers for Constable Rolfe had objected to the text messages being revealed at the inquest, however, Coroner Elisabeth Armitage ruled on Tuesday that the text messages were admissible for the purposes of the inquest, even if they had been illegally obtained, because the messages show “prima facie” racist attitudes of police that could be considered “relevant circumstance connected with the death”.

Constable Rolfe was found not guilty of murder and two alternative charges in March, following a five-week trial in the Supreme Court. The inquest into Mr Walker’s death is expected to run for three months.