Kathryn Hay: Ex-Labor MP charged with emotional abuse/intimidation

A former Miss Australia and state MP who served four years in the House of Assembly is alleged by police to have emotionally abused or intimidated her husband for more than 10 years.

Ex-Tasmanian Labor MP Kathryn Isobel Hay, 47, has been charged with emotional abuse or intimidation. Picture: File

A former Labor politician who represented the state division of Bass for four years before retiring due to personal reasons has been charged with emotional abuse or intimidation.

Launceston-born Swan Bay woman Kathryn Isobel Hay, 47, appeared in Launceston Magistrates Court on Wednesday for the first mention of the charge.

Defence lawyer Patrick O’Halloran requested a first appearance adjournment of the charge.

Ms Hay will reappear in court on May 29.

No details of the alleged offence were placed on the public record at this early stage.

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However, Tasmania Police allege the offending was committed against her husband Troy Richardson and occurred between October 22, 2011 and February 13, 2022. It is not known whether the pair remain together.

ACM reported in 2021 they were married. Ms Hay and Mr Richardson have two children together.

Kathryn Hay crowned Miss Australia on 29 Jan 1999. .

Ms Hay was prominent in Tasmanian life in the late 1990s and throughout the 2000s.

In 1999, she was declared Miss Tasmania and went on to win the Miss Australia crown later that year.

Ms Hay stood for and was elected to the state division of Bass at the 2002 election, alongside Jim Cox, the pair replacing retiring Labor Bass MPs Gill James and Peter Patmore.

She did not seek re-election at the 2006 state election, retiring due to “personal reasons,” according to her biography on the Parliament of Tasmania website.

She was the first woman of Aboriginal descent to be elected in Tasmania.

Ms Hay made prospective runs for re-election in 2009 and 2012, but on both occasions withdrew prior to the ballot.

The ABC previously reported that Ms Hay lives with illness caused by a muscular condition.