SYDNEY, May 4 (AFP) - A magistrate in Australia has cleared a student who verbally abused a police officer, saying the word involved was in "common usage", it was reported on Tuesday.

University student Henry Grech called a senior constable a "prick" during an argument at a Sydney railway station last year but the offensive language case against him fell apart after the magistrate said the word was in common use.

"I consider the word prick is of a less derogatory nature than other words and it is in common usage in this country," Waverley Local Court Magistrate Robbie Williams told the court on Monday.

"A police officer on a number of occurrences would hear words like this used on a much worse scale. Police officers would be used to this type of language," Sydney's Daily Telegraph reported him as saying.

State police said while swearing might be common, it could still be offensive and the decision viewed police officers as "second class citizens".

"Police shouldn't be punching bags for society, nor should they be open to this sort of abuse," New South Wales Police Association Secretary Peter Remfrey said.

Grech's lawyer Nick Hanna Tuesday acknowledged the case had "caused a bit of a storm."

"His honour was not condoning my client's alleged behaviour whatsoever," he told a press conference. "He simply made a finding of law."