{"id":648725,"date":"2026-05-04T09:27:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T09:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/648725\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T09:27:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T09:27:15","slug":"afl-icon-accused-of-petrifying-2025-assault","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/648725\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL icon accused of ‘petrifying’ 2025 assault"},"content":{"rendered":"

A woman has alleged AFL great Nicky Winmar dragged her by the hair and smashed her head against a door during a “petrifying” attack.<\/p>\n

The woman, who cannot be identified, made the accusations at Bendigo Magistrates Court today as Winmar fought four assault charges in a contested hearing.<\/p>\n

Police allege the former St Kilda star, 60, attacked the woman at Cohuna in northern Victoria on May 14, 2025.<\/p>\n

\"NickyFormer St Kilda footballer and racism advocate Nicky Winmar is fighting allegations he attacked a woman almost a year ago. (AAP Image\/James Ross)<\/p>\n

She told the court Winmar unexpectedly became angry that evening and started yelling at her.<\/p>\n

“Just complete ranting and screaming at me – none of it made sense,” she told the court.<\/p>\n

“We hadn’t been arguing or anything like that. I couldn’t work out what was going on. I was in absolute shock.”<\/p>\n

The woman alleged Winmar grabbed her arm and twisted it hard before pulling her by the ponytail and dragging her into another room.<\/p>\n

She said Winmar then pushed her against a wall, before yelling and spitting in her face.<\/p>\n

“He turned off the light and wouldn’t let me out,” the woman told the court.<\/p>\n

“He physically overpowered me so I couldn’t get out. He knew I was scared.”<\/p>\n

The woman told the court he eventually let go of her and she ran to grab her mobile phone but he took it off her.<\/p>\n

\"NickyWinmar became the first Aboriginal footballer to play 200 games in the AFL, finishing his career with 230 games at St Kilda and 21 for the Western Bulldogs. (Vince Caligiuri)<\/p>\n

He only passed the phone back after she said she wanted to call a friend instead of the police, the court was told.<\/p>\n

The woman said she spoke to her friend before passing the phone back to Winmar and running from the room.<\/p>\n

He allegedly chased after her and grabbed her head before bashing it repeatedly into a wooden door.<\/p>\n

“I was getting dizzy, it was incredibly painful,” she told the court.<\/p>\n

The woman said she managed to break free and lock herself into a room, where she called Triple Zero.<\/p>\n

“I was petrified he was going to do more things to me,” the woman said in her evidence.<\/p>\n

“I was actually fearful for my life.”<\/p>\n

The Triple Zero call was played to the court alongside body-worn camera footage from a police officer who attended the scene.<\/p>\n

A photo of the woman’s arm was also shown, depicting bruising above her right elbow.<\/p>\n

\"NickyNicky Winmar fronted up to an abusive crowd in 1993, lifting his jumper and pointing at his skin. (Wayne Ludbey)<\/p>\n

Under questioning from Winmar’s barrister, Dermot Dann KC, the woman accepted she did not tell the Triple Zero call taker nor the first officer what exactly happened.<\/p>\n

She did not disclose the allegations Winmar had dragged her or that he spat in her face.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t do that deliberately,” the woman told the court.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t want to relive it again because I had been sitting in that room absolutely broken by what had just happened.”<\/p>\n

The contested hearing will continue tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Winmar became the first Aboriginal footballer to play 200 games in the AFL, finishing his career with 230 games at St Kilda and 21 for the Western Bulldogs.<\/p>\n

He fought back against racism in his career, including standing in front of an abusive Collingwood crowd in 1993, lifting his jumper and proudly pointing at his skin.<\/p>\n

Winmar is also co-leading a landmark racism class action against the AFL in the Victorian Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732)<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A woman has alleged AFL great Nicky Winmar dragged her by the hair and smashed her head against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":648726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-648725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=648725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}