Judge Gregory Geason ‘punched partner’ then ‘pretended bruises not there’

A judge punched his partner up to eight times in the chest and breasts and caused her to injure her head, before ‘pretending’ her bruises were not there, a court has heard.

Justice Gregory Geason leaves court. Picture: Linda Higginson.

A judge punched his partner up to eight times in the chest and breasts and pushed her, causing her to injure her head, later “pretending” her bruises were not there, a court has heard.

The woman on Tuesday told the Hobart Magistrates Court the alleged assault by Tasmanian Supreme Court judge Gregory Geason occurred on October 31, 2023, after he saw a “funny” photograph texted by a male work colleague.

She told the court Justice Geason exclaimed “what the f..k – who is this person?” and grabbed her phone, going through her texts, including deleted messages with the same work colleague.

Justice Geason called her “disgusting” and a “slut”, she told the court via video link.

“He just got angrier and angrier,” she told the court, where Justice Geason has pleaded not guilty to one charge of common assault and one count of emotional abuse or intimidation.

The woman said she reassured Justice Geason there was “absolutely nothing going on” between herself and the work colleague, who had sent a photo of himself “pulling a funny face”.

However, Justice Geason “stood up and grabbed me by the arms really, really tightly”. “It was really painful and he was just shaking and shaking me,” she told the court. “I was incredibly scared and it was very painful …

“I was trying to get away. He started punching me in the chest and the breasts … I was trying to get away. He pushed me. I just remember flying backwards…and hitting my head on the mantelpiece.”

She said Justice Geason had punched her “six, seven or eight times”. When she hit the mantelpiece, she heard a “loud crack in my head” and then “blacked out”.

“When I came to, I was still standing and had huge eggs on the back of my head from where I hit the mantelpiece,” she said. “My head was so screaming in pain … I thought my skull had broken I was in so much pain.”

She said she told Justice Geason: “I can’t believe you did this… you’ve given me big golfballs on my head, I think there’s serious damage.” “He said ‘You’re so pissed, you tripped’,” she told the court.

He later “pretended the bruises weren’t there” but at one point told her to “just put on a jacket’’. She took photographs of the bruises the next day and contacted police within several days.

She flew to Melbourne on November 3 and later spent two days in Bendigo Hospital.

The court has heard Justice Geason, aged in his early 60s, insists he at no time deliberately struck or injured the woman, aged in her mid-40s, and that the two had a “whirlwind” relationship for about six months in 2023.

Under cross-examination, the woman conceded she told police in November she could not recall if Justice Geason had struck her with an open or closed fist.

She said she now recalled that he had “hit and punched” her “six to eight times” and rejected the suggestion by counsel for Justice Geason, Tom Percy KC, that she had “embellished” her account.

Mr Percy pointed to medical notes suggesting she told doctors Justice Geason had hit her on two other occasions about which she now made no such allegation. “I was concussed, I was traumatised, I can’t remember,” she said.

Justice Gregory Geason in the Supreme Court in Hobart. Picture: Sam Rosewarne

Appointed to the Supreme Court bench in 2017, Justice Geason is on leave pending the outcome of the proceedings.

The trial continues before Victorian Deputy Chief Magistrate Susan Wakeling, flown in to preside because Justice Geason is known to local magistrates. Part of the woman’s evidence has been suppressed, as has the woman’s name.