WARNING: Sensitive content.

Former AFL star Nicky Winmar will soon learn if he has been spared jail time for dragging a woman and bashing her head into a door.

Winmar, 60, is being sentenced in Bendigo Magistrates Court on Friday after he was convicted of a May 2025 assault against a woman at Cohuna in northern Victoria.

The woman, who cannot be identified, told the court Winmar unexpectedly became angry at her before grabbing and twisting her arm.

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.

Winmar argued the woman was lying but magistrate Trieu Huynh on July 3 found him guilty of two counts of common law assault and one charge of unlawful assault.

At a pre-sentence hearing on August 6, Winmar’s barrister Dermot Dann KC argued his client had already been punished as he pushed for a community corrections order.

The former St Kilda star had been stripped of his spot on the Australian Football Hall of Fame and his statue was removed from Perth’s Optus Stadium following his conviction, Mr Dann said.

The barrister argued while Winmar had some low points, he had also changed society for the better through his 1993 stance against racism.

“They can erase his statue,” Mr Dann said.

“What 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.”

But prosecutor Annina Tropea pushed for Winmar to be jailed, arguing he had multiple opportunities to walk away during the attack but he persisted.

The magistrate is expected to hand down his sentence in Bendigo on Friday morning.

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.

He was the first Indigenous footballer to play 200 VFL/AFL games.

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