It was after a neighbourhood New Year's Eve party at Catherine Hill Bay that things turned violent, resulting in an off-duty police officer and his wife being charged, a court has heard.
The officer faces two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm after he allegedly punched two men in the early hours of January 1 this year. The officer's wife was charged with one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm after she allegedly struck a woman in the same encounter.
The pair faced the first day of a local court hearing at Belmont on Friday, after they pleaded not guilty to the charges in March.
The Newcastle Herald is not naming the parties to protect the identity of a teenager who featured heavily in evidence on Friday from one of the alleged victims and his wife.
The man told the court he "lunged" and grabbed the officer's daughter by the throat because the teenager had begun to hit his wife when a conversation in the street about an alleged earlier scuffle escalated.
Read more: Police and court news
"Almost immediately I started to feel hits in the back of my head," the man said, so he let go of the teenager's throat before the officer punched him in the jaw.
When the officer's defence barrister Peter Harper asked the alleged victim why he had grabbed the girl's throat instead of pushing her away, he replied that he was acting on "instinct".
The man rejected a suggestion from Mr Harper that he did not let go of the teenager's throat until he was allegedly struck by the girl's father.
In his evidence, the man told the court the officer then confronted another neighbour and punched him.
The court heard the altercation came after an earlier alleged scuffle at the Catho Pub involving another female neighbour - who the officer's wife is accused of striking later in the street when the two men were allegedly punched.
The officer involved was attached to the North West Metropolitan Region at the time of the incident.
Magistrate Peter Barnett left the matter part heard and adjourned it to February 4.
