A WOMAN who reported to police she was the victim in a day-long relationship-ending dispute with her partner has been roasted by a magistrate.
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Belinda McVeigh, of Panorama Avenue, Warrnambool, pleaded guilty in the Warrnambool Magistrates Court to unlawful assault on her 42nd birthday.
Magistrate Cynthia Toose told McVeigh it was appalling conduct to go to the police station and say she was the victim when she had been the aggressor.
Police said that on the evening of June 8 McVeigh and her partner had a verbal argument which turned physical after he said he wanted the relationship to end.
McVeigh punched the man to the face and he suffered a small cut and soreness.
McVeigh then took a remote control, went and had a shower and threw and hit the victim with the remote.
He threw the remote back but missed McVeigh.
She then grabbed him, pinned him to a wall and choked him, before he took her to ground and said she had gone too far.
McVeigh went to the police station and reported to Warrnambool police she had been choked.
But, she had no visible injuries, unlike the victim who had red marks to his neck, and police said her version of events was flawed and inconsistent.
McVeigh said she didn’t want her husband to leave her, that he had called her a junkie and she punched him to the face.
Lawyer Amanda Chambers said the couple had bickered and her client was trying to get the upper hand by making the report to police.
“It backfired in a spectacular way. She was the aggressor,” she said.
Ms Toose said people reacted to stressful situations in different ways but the events of the day had got completely out of control.
She said court would not differentiate between a man and woman in such circumstances and McVeigh had made unacceptable claims to police.
McVeigh was not convicted and placed on a 12-month CCO to do 80 hours of community work.
