FORMER Carlton footballer Adrian Whitehead was offered character evidence by AFL premiership team-mate Peter Dean on Friday as he fought an assault count.
The 2017 Holbrook football club coach was charged by police with assault occasioning actual bodily harm over an early morning incident on September 10.
Police alleged Whitehead elbowed and punched a woman after she tried to intervene in an altercation between her partner and the coach following a ride home on a courtesy bus run by Albury pub Beer Deluxe.
For the past two days, Albury magistrate Rodney Brender has heard evidence about the incident which followed Holbrook football club’s presentation night.
The court heard the woman suffered a bruised black eye and broken tooth.
Police prosecutor Sgt Tanya Bradford said the evidence was that “she copped an elbow to her face from Mr Whitehead while she was pulling on his shirt to stop an altercation between Mr Whitehead and her partner”.
She added as the melee continued the complainant was punched to the face, causing her to fall to the ground.
But Whitehead’s barrister Richard Thomas argued there was an absence of evidence about how the woman sustained her injuries.
He said she could have suffered an accidental blow from her partner, tripped in her high heels or fallen over and suffered blunt force trauma.
Glory days: Peter Dean is chaired off the ground after a milestone match against Port Adelaide at Football Park in 1998. At the time one of his team-mates was Adrian Whitehead who later worked alongside him as a coach in the Upper Murray.
The court heard Whitehead had upset bus passengers with his whistling and had been told to shut up.
He also told a vulgar joke with a c-bomb punchline.
Dean was shocked to learn Whitehead had used such a joke, saying “the c-word, that’s disgraceful”.
“I have never seen him disrespect any women,” Dean said.
He described his old team-mate as “a good country fella, similar to myself, and I haven’t found him to be dishonest at all”.
Whitehead had contacted police over the incident after reading a Border Mail story online on September 12 which described a Thurgoona assault that left a woman with damage to her teeth.
He also phoned Holbrook club president David Morton, telling him he had let the club down.
The former Holbrook mayor said he does not read The Border Mail so did not know of the matter until that call.
Agreed to back coach: Holbrook football club president David Morton said Whitehead had been recruited to club to help young players and it was decided to support him following feedback from player witnesses to Thurgoona incident.
He said he contacted club life member Robbie Mackinlay and after the pair spoke to footballers Kade Stagg and Ben Talarico, who were witnesses, they agreed to support Whitehead.
Stagg, Talarico and fellow footballers Lachlan Casey and Coby Ross gave evidence on Friday of being on the courtesy bus and the fracas between Whitehead and the woman’s partner.
They all said they had seen no punches thrown, but their evidence varied on whether the woman fell forwards or backwards to the ground.
All said they had been drinking beer throughout the previous night and into the early hours.
The driver of the Beer Deluxe, who could given evidence to the hearing, declined to provide a statement to police, Sgt Bradford said.
Mr Brender reserved his decision until August.
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