![\"Nicky](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/3c093a075127006d8227392109d6f6e5.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nA magistrate has found former AFL great Neil Elvis “Nicky” Winmar guilty of assaulting a woman in northern Victoria last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, told the Bendigo Magistrates’ Court in May she was “fearful” for her life during the incident in May 2025 at Cohuna.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The prosecution told the court Winmar grabbed and twisted the woman’s arm, dragged her by her hair and smashed her head against a wooden door four times.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Winmar pleaded not guilty to charges including assault and intentionally causing injury.<\/p>\n
He was found guilty of three counts of unlawful assault and common law assault, but Magistrate Trieu Huynh acquitted him of a fourth charge of intentionally causing injury.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Magistrate Huynh\u00a0said he accepted the woman\u2019s account of what happened on the night and that she had been consistent on the core pieces of evidence, corroborated by photos.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I do not dismiss inconsistencies in her evidence. With the benefit of observing her give evidence \u2026 [the woman] presents as credible witness,” he said.<\/p>\n
He said under extensive cross-examination from the defence, the woman had remained “steadfast” in denying she had lied to make the incident sound worse for Winmar.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However Magistrate Huynh said he was not satisfied the prosecution had proven the charge of intentionally causing injury, as the woman did not require medical treatment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The case will return to court for a pre-sentence hearing in August.<\/p>\n
Winmar’s barrister Dermot Dann KC told the court he would ask the magistrate to consider a community corrections order for sentencing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Winmar did not comment on the finding as he left court this afternoon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Winmar, an inductee into the Australian Football Hall of Fame, is best known for his time playing for St Kilda.<\/p>\n
During a game in 1993, he lifted his shirt and pointed to his skin in response to racist abuse from the crowd.<\/p>\n
The moment became a powerful anti-racism symbol and is immortalised in a bronze statue at Perth Stadium.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Nicky Winmar arriving at Bendigo Magistrates’ Court on Friday morning. (ABC News: Anna McGuinness)<\/p>\n
Court hears self-defence claim<\/p>\n
During a three-day contested hearing in May, prosecutor Annina Tropea told the court photos of the woman’s arm showed bruising and swelling consistent with her version of events.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“[The woman] was an honest, reliable and credible witness,” Ms Tropea said.<\/p>\n
The court was also played an emotional Triple Zero (000) call from the night, in which the woman told the call-taker she was hiding and had been hit.<\/p>\n
Mr Dann told the court the allegations did not happen, and Winmar had made contact with the woman’s arm in self defence.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Two](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/35d56931b4e4bb1d82db522d598bd0c1.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Nicky Winmar arrives at the Bendigo Magistrates’ Court with Dermot Dann for a contested hearing in May. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
During questioning of the woman Mr Dann said Winmar was trying to “fend off” her punches.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“One of the punches caused a cut to his face, which was observed by police,” he said to the woman.<\/p>\n
“No, that is not true. I did not,” the woman said.<\/p>\n
He also questioned the efforts of police to verify the allegations, including failing to contact a witness the prosecution said Winmar had spoken to on the phone during the incident.<\/p>\n
“The prosecution case paints Mr Winmar as raving, screaming, spitting, out of control. Yet within the body of the incident there’s said to be a 20-minute phone call with another person. Surely that person had relevant information to give,” Mr Dann said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Magistrate Huynh said the police could have taken certain avenues of enquiry such as canvassing this witness, or if anyone else had seen or heard what happened.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The court heard evidence from the complainant, two attending police officers and the woman’s friend across the three-day contested hearing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A magistrate has found former AFL great Neil Elvis “Nicky” Winmar guilty of assaulting a woman in northern…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":775791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5729,24278,1108,43,44,223612,35208,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-775790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-allegations","tag-assault","tag-court","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-nicky-winmar","tag-self-defence","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775790","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=775790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}