A former Miss Australia and former Labor politician verbally abused her husband, punched him, threatened him with violence weekly and hit him with a shoe, a court has heard.
Kathryn Isobel Hay, 48, has pleaded not guilty to emotional abuse or intimidation by her then-partner Troy Shane Richardson from January 2014 to November 2022.
Richardson said Hay also pressured him to request the lifting of a family violence order against her and made him send an email to her siblings saying “it was all her fault.”
Former bassist and beauty pageant winner Kathryn Hay, 48, appeared at Launceston Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday.
Ms Hay (left) won Miss Tasmania and Miss Australia in 1999.
Hay was crowned Miss Tasmania and Miss Australia in 1999 and served in the Tasmanian parliament as a Labor member from 2002 to 2006.
She appeared at Launceston Magistrates Court on Tuesday for the opening of a hearing expected to last several days.
Richardson said the couple met in 2009 at a dog show and married in 2012.
She described their relationship as “all rosy” but said things deteriorated around 2013 after the birth of their second child.
On a holiday in Melbourne in 2014, he said Hay hit him in the face with a shoe several times while driving because he “just didn’t do something right”.
She threw a bowl of cereal at him on the trip back to Tasmania and called him worthless, pathetic and corrupt, he said.
Richardson told the court there were threats of violence at least weekly and that Hay would give him lists of things that needed to be done.
‘If it wasn’t done correctly, it would receive abuse. If she was done, she would give me another list,’ she said.
“He often went out of his way to have an argument in public just to make me feel depressed.”
Former Miss Australia Kathryn Hay has pleaded not guilty to domestic violence charges
Ms Hay represented the Bass community in the Tasmanian parliament from 2002 to 2006, after winning Miss Tasmania and Miss Australia in 1999.
One of several messages allegedly showed Hay telling Mr Richardson to “get his f*** together”.
Richardson said he was left with a black eye after Hay hit him in 2020.
In December 2021, Hay was stopped by police for allegedly slapping Mr Richardson for driving too fast around a corner, resulting in a family violence order against her.
Richardson said Hay then demanded the order be revoked and spent 79 minutes on the phone with him telling him what to write.
Hay allegedly accused Mr Richardson of having an affair with a woman he had never met.
She also accused him of hacking into her phone and computer, and bugging her car. Richardson said police spoke to him but never charged anyone.
He said the allegations left him “devastated and depressed.”
Under cross-examination by Hay’s lawyer, Dermot Connors, Richardson agreed that the end of the marriage was bitter.
He denied having control of the couple’s finances and access to Hay’s Facebook account and sending messages to himself.
Richardson also denied allegations that payments she received to care for Hay were obtained against her will by falsely claiming she had major depression.
He disagreed with the claim that Hay only called him ac*** in 2021 and early 2022 when their relationship was “very bad”.
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