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Former AFL player may be jailed

A magistrate has warned former Carlton footballer Nick Stevens he would feel ā€œthe full force of the lawā€ for threatening and bashing an old girlfriend.

ā€œThis starts with imprisonment,ā€ Magistrate Nunzio La Rosa said.

Stevens would receive no discount on his sentence for sustained violence against a woman, he said.

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ā€œHe’s shown no remorse, he’s accepted no responsibility,ā€ the magistrate said at Stevens’ plea hearing on Wednesday.

In January, Stevens was found guilty of 12 charges arising from the abuse charges against a woman he went out with in 2012 and 2013.

A magistrate found he threatened to kill the ex-girlfriend and her father, smashed her face into a tiled kitchen wall and left her with a cut face after pushing her head into the external wall of a house.

Stevens called an ex-AFL heavyweight into the Ringwood Magistrates Court on Wednesday to help him beat a possible jail term.

Michael Malouf, Carlton chief executive from 2003 to 2007, said the charges were completely inconsistent with the person he knew Stevens to be.

ā€œI saw Nick as being on the pathway to being an AFL coachā€ Mr Malouf said.

ā€œHe had all the attributes.ā€

Stevens was part of Carlton’s player-voted leadership group and the club vice-captain before a neck injury ended his career in 2009.

Allegations of repeated attacks and threats against his former partner ended a prospect of an AFL coaching career, the court heard.

Stevens’ defence barrister Serge Petrovich said the 35-year-old had been in line for an assistant coaching job at St Kilda before abuse charges were laid.

Stevens was later told his coaching prospects were ā€œgone and evaporatedā€ because sponsors were wary, Mr Petrovich said.

Mr Petrovich argued people with profiles like Stevens’ suffer additional scrutiny and damage to their career prospects.

He submitted that a suspended sentence of community corrections order would be appropriate punishment.

Prosecutor, leading senior constable Mark Sontag, called for Stevens to be jailed.

On Wednesday, Stevens also pleaded guilty to a further charge of breaching an intervention order in 2013 when he sent more than 2500 text messages in three months to a person he was not supposed to contact.

He will be sentenced next week.

-AAP

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