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.