Former AFL great Nicky Winmar has been released on bail half an hour after he was slapped with a six month jail term over a violent attack on a woman last year.
The 60-year-old returned to the Bendigo Magistrates’ Court on Friday morning, slipping past waiting media by entering through a side door.
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In July, the 13-season AFL veteran was found guilty on three assault charges but acquitted of a more serious charge of intentionally causing injury.
The charges related to an incident in May last year, where Winmar launched into a violent attack on a woman, who cannot be named, at a Motel in northern Victoria, screaming and spitting at her.
He twisted the woman’s arm, dragged her by the hair and smashed her face into a door four times, damaging the door above the handle.
She escaped, and hid in a room at the hotel for an hour waiting for police to arrive while Winmar “circled outside”.
During a pre-sentence hearing earlier this month, prosecutors called for a jail sentence, arguing the offending was “protracted”, “violent” and persistent”, while his defence urged the court to sentence Winmar to a community-based order.
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA- NewsWire Photos, AUGUST, 6, 2026. Nicky Winmar arrives at Bendigo court for a sentence hearing after being found guilty of assaulting a woman in northern Victoria. Picture: Ã Picture: NewsWire / David GeraghtySource: FOX SPORTS
Winmar sat hunched forward tapping his feet, wringing his hands and rubbing his face as magistrate Trieu Huynh delivered his sentencing remarks.
Mr Huynh said he accepted Winmar had taken significant steps to rehabilitate himself, including through counselling and sobriety.
“It seems whenever you’ve been involved in criminal infractions, alcohol has been a common theme,” the magistrate said.
But he said Winmar “cannot escape” the seriousness of his offending and the impact on the victim.
“The only appropriate disposition does involve a period of imprisonment,” Mr Huynh said.
Under the sentence, Winmar will serve six months in prison followed by a 12-month community corrections order.
Following the sentence, defence barrister Dermot Dann KC jumped to his feet, saying he’d been instructed to appeal the conviction and sentence.
His solicitor then dashed out of court to file appeal paperwork, returning half an hour later as Winmar was released on bail after prosecutors did not oppose it.
Last month, the woman told the court she would wake in the middle of the night crying “uncontrollably” and now suffered regular panic attacks.
“The incident would play in my mind over and over and over again, it was relentless,” she said.
“I’m not the same person I once was due to the trauma I have experienced.”
Winmar maintains he is innocent of the charges.