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A woman who intentionally caused harm to a pregnant police officer had an "emotional reaction" to the victim impact statement shared in court.

Raina Cruise assaulted the officer in Adelaide's CBD in October 2021.

A female police officer was pregnant when she was assaulted by anti-vaccine protester and failed South Australian Senate candidate Raina Cruise in Adelaide's CBD, a court has heard.

Raina Cruise, 41, was found guilty by District Court Judge Jo-Anne Deuter in April this year of intentionally causing harm to Constable Anthea Beck on Rundle Street in October 2021.

Cruise also pleaded guilty to the aggravated assaults of two security officers on the same night.

In a victim impact statement read aloud to the court on Monday, Constable Beck said she was unaware she had been pregnant at the time of the assault.

"I was tired, my back was hurting and I felt weak, I didn't know but I was pregnant with my daughter," she said.

"When you kicked me, you kicked my baby.

"So caught up in yourself you couldn't see me for what I am.

"I'm a woman – a mother like you. I would've listened to you."

Constable Beck told the court her maternity leave was impacted by the court proceedings.

The court previously heard Constable Beck suffered several injuries, including facial bruising and clumps of hair being pulled out, during an altercation with Cruise in 2021.

Judge Deuter previously said Constable Beck and a colleague were tasked to investigate an altercation involving a group of people — who had been removing face masks from pub patrons — and security guards.

"In a span of just two seconds the accused moved aggressively towards Beck and swung her arm at her, knocking off her police hat," she said.

"Within six seconds she has grabbed Beck's hair and started to drag her to the ground."

On Monday, prosecutor Greg Dudzinski said Cruise also injured two Exeter Hotel security guards by striking one to the ear and "grabbing" at the windpipe of the other "with both hands several times in a fashion that led him to believe she was trying to do serious damage".

"She continued to do this, grabbing at his windpipe trying to twist it and also punched his throat with a clenched fist," he said.

Defence lawyer Andrew Graham, for Cruise, said his client was "emotionally heightened" on the night of the offending and had been protesting for vaccination rights earlier that day.

"Unfortunately following that rally, Ms Cruise didn't do herself any favours through her consumption of alcohol," she said.

"At that time so she perceived, essentially, that they [her friends] were being removed [from the hotel] unfairly because of their views about vaccines and what had happened earlier in the day.

"She intervened because she thought she was protecting them at the time. She doesn't have a great recollection of the physical actions that she performed."

Mr Graham said his client's "passionate" beliefs about vaccinations derived from the death of her two-month-old son in 2003.

"His death was formally attributed to SIDS, why it's relevant to this offending is only a matter of some hours earlier he had received routine vaccinations," he said.

"In my submission, not relevant whether her view's correct or not, she has beliefs about vaccines that are genuinely held and are passionately held."

Mr Graham said Cruise had an "emotional" reaction to Constable Beck's victim impact statement letter and "in particular the revelation that [she] was pregnant".

Defence asks for suspended sentence

 

Mr Dudzinski told the court Cruise should be sentenced to a term of imprisonment.

He said she had previously been found guilty of several offences including the assault of a police officer in 2005.

"They're matters that seem trivial but are consistent with a particular disregard for the law," he said.

"With the exception of the assaults on the security guards, there appears to be continual denial of the offending and somewhat a lack of remorse.

"There is a repeated pattern of violent offending and violence against the police."

Mr Graham asked Judge Deuter to suspend any term of imprisonment she may impose.

"Her behaviour when she's intoxicated really is a manifestation of that grief disorder, she's not acting that way every day, she's not a nasty person in everyday life," he said.

Mr Graham said his client "wasn't running around pulling people's masks off" but had removed the mask of one man before saying "you're too handsome to be wearing a mask".

"So there wasn't any nastiness to it — she's not the first person to get drunk and inappropriately flirty on Rundle Street," he said.

Cruise ran in the 2022 federal election for the Informed Medical Options Party, campaigning for bodily autonomy, and was a regular at anti-vaccination rallies.

The matter will return to court in December for sentencing.