When she swore at him, he said: "I'm sorry. I thought you were (a male officer)."

Jamie Mark Hayward was found guilty after a trial in Brisbane District Court last year of indecently assaulting the officer at Browns Plains police station in April 2017.

On Tuesday, the Queensland Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal against his conviction.

At trial, the woman testified Hayward stopped by the group, stood in front of her and grabbed the front part of her left breast in a pinching motion.

She felt her nipple being squeezed and was immediately in a state of shock and embarrassment, she said.

Hayward said he had his head down when he walked past the group and did not look up before pinching the woman.

"And that's when I thought I'd just sort of surprise (the male officer) and sort of make him jump a bit," he said.

He claimed it was part of the culture at the station to make people jump, having believed he was touching the male officer on the torso.

But other officers testified seeing little physical contact between Hayward and the male officer he claimed to mistake the woman for, and that they looked nothing alike.

Hayward appealed on the grounds he did not intend to touch the woman, therefore it did not have a sexual connotation and could not have been considered indecent.

But the Appeal Court ruled the fact he touched the woman's breast "gave the assault the necessary sexual connotation for indecency".

"The sexual connotation derived directly from the area of the complainant's body that was assaulted," Justice John Gotterson said.

Hayward was handed a three-month suspended sentence after being convicted.

Australian Associated Press