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A Linton soldier has escaped a jail sentence for a prolonged Valentine's Day beating of her lesbian lover.
But her future in the military has yet to be determined, an Army spokesman said.
In Palmerston North District Court yesterday, Judge Nevin Dawson sentenced the 33-year-old woman to 250 hours of community work. Her name is permanently suppressed.
She had been warned she faced a prison sentence after earlier pleading guilty to common assault.
The court was told the woman attacked her girlfriend in her Palmerston North house after she had been spurned.
The victim was hauled around the house by her hair and shirt while being punched and kicked in a 90-minute assault.
Yesterday the accused's lawyer, Gordon Paine, said the woman disputed the severity and duration of the attack, and said the violence came from both parties.
"They were fighting each other."
But the woman accepted she was the aggressor.
She had voluntarily attended anger management courses, and there was the possibility of reconciliation with her partner.
"She faces perhaps the loss of her future, of her career, but perhaps not a loss of her relationship," he said.
Judge Dawson said the woman went to the house to apologise for an incident earlier that day, and should have left when she was told to.
The assault was prolonged and serious. The victim appeared to have been vulnerable and unable to defend herself.
"Any crime involving violence is repugnant to society. Any crime involving violence over a prolonged period is even more so."
But he said she would not be sent to jail.
At the time of the assault, the woman had been about to serve in Afghanistan but could not go because of the charge.
An Army spokesman at Linton, Lieutenant Geoff Faraday, said a full and careful review of the woman's career and future would be undertaken as a priority.
"The Army takes any sort of abuse seriously and has recently had a campaign against inter-family violence."
- NZPA
