{"id":845961,"date":"2026-08-06T20:00:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T20:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/845961\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T20:00:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T20:00:19","slug":"ex-afl-star-winmar-pushes-for-no-jail-time-over-assault","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/845961\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-AFL star Winmar pushes for no jail time over assault"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former AFL star Nicky Winmar has already been punished by the \u201cerasure\u201d of his accolades and statue<\/a>, his lawyer argued as he pushed for his client to avoid jail time.<\/p>\n

Winmar, 60, was in July convicted<\/a> of a May 2025 assault<\/a> against a woman at Cohuna in northern Victoria<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Nicky Winmar, centre, who was found guilty of assault, is pictured here with his lawyer Dermot Dann, left.\u00a0AAPIMAGE<\/p>\n

The woman, who cannot be identified, told the court Winmar unexpectedly became angry at her before grabbing and twisting her arm.<\/p>\n

He then dragged the woman by the hair, pushed her up against a wall and spat in her face before repeatedly bashing her head into a wooden door.<\/p>\n

Winmar argued the woman was lying but Bendigo magistrate Trieu Huynh found him guilty of two counts of common law assault and one charge of unlawful assault.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At Winmar\u2019s pre-sentence hearing on Thursday, the woman told the court she no longer felt like the person she once was.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have days where I feel so worthless and my confidence is non-existent,\u201d she said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t feel safe anywhere. I\u2019m always on edge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prosecutor Annina Tropea argued the impact on the victim had been profound as she pushed for Winmar to be jailed.<\/p>\n

The 60-year-old had multiple opportunities during the attack to walk away and yet he persisted, Tropea said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe needs to understand there are consequences for his decision-making,\u201d the prosecutor said.<\/p>\n

But Winmar\u2019s barrister Dermot Dann KC argued a jail term was the last resort and a community corrections order was the more appropriate sentence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dann submitted Winmar had already suffered additional punishment since his conviction, with his statue being removed from Optus Stadium in Perth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Winmar was also stripped of his spot in the AFL Hall of Fame, Dann said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one was waiting to see if he wanted to appeal – they just removed it,\u201d he told the court.<\/p>\n

Dann conceded there had been some low points in Winmar\u2019s life and the assault in Cohuna was one of those times.<\/p>\n

But the 60-year-old had taken steps to address his mental health struggles and issues with alcohol, Dann said.<\/p>\n

Winmar had abstained from alcohol for the past 12 months and was still seeing a psychologist to deal with his post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, the barrister said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The statue of former AFL player Nicky Winmar is removed from outside of Optus Stadium.\u00a0Paul Kane\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Dann argued while there have been low points, Winmar had also changed society for the better.<\/p>\n

He pointed to his stance against racism in 1993, where Winmar stood in front of an abusive Collingwood crowd, lifted his jumper and pointed to his skin.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey can erase his statue,\u201d Dann said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat they will never be able to erase from the hearts and minds of the people who care about racism … is the memory of his great stand that day at Victoria Park.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey will never erase that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The magistrate said he would need time to consider whether he should jail Winmar or sentence him to a community corrections order.<\/p>\n

He ordered Winmar undergo a corrections assessment ahead of his sentence hearing on August 28.<\/p>\n

Winmar, whose bail was extended, ignored questions from reporters as he left the Bendigo court.<\/p>\n

Winmar kicked 317 goals across 251 games with St Kilda and the Western Bulldogs, and was named in the All-Australian team in 1991 and 1995.<\/p>\n

He was the first Indigenous footballer to play 200 VFL\/AFL games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former AFL star Nicky Winmar has already been punished by the \u201cerasure\u201d of his accolades and statue, his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":845962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-845961","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\/845961","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=845961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/845962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=845961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}