http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/very-dirty-laundry/2007/01/15/1168709679154.html

A WEEK after the scuffle with his partner, Steven Chaytor seemed full of regret.

"I still feel very rotten about what I did and the consequences for everyone," he told her in a text message. "I am not sure this is the job for me. I am not sure I can say sorry enough for everything."

It is that job - Labor MP for Macquarie Fields - that means Chaytor's domestic travails are not passing unnoticed, as cases of discord behind closed doors typically do. This case - complete with claims of infidelity, a suicide attempt and an ugly physical clash - will decide Chaytor's political future when the verdict is delivered in Campbelltown Local Court on Friday.

Chaytor and his girlfriend of three years, Fee Fen Njoo, agree on much of what happened that day, December 10, in their Glenfield home. There was trouble in their relationship and they had argued about another woman. She accused him of having an affair. He said it was just dinner and a trip to a Bondi bookshop.

After the accusation he ended their relationship.

She said she felt worthless and wanted to die. She took 10 to 12 tablets from the medicine cabinet - pills for irritable bowel syndrome. When she wanted to take more medicine, including paracetamol, a scuffle ensued. During it, she ripped his shirt and scratched him. Accidentally, she says. He kicked her in the calf with bare feet. This is where their versions start to differ and why he is charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Chaytor says he wanted to stop her scratching him, get her off him, and flush a bottle of multi-vitamins, which he says she wanted to take, down the toilet.

She says after the scratch, he grabbed her, pushed her, kicked her three times and made verbal threats. Both agree he offered to take her to hospital, but she did not want to go. After a while they went to sleep, and the next day she said she was fine.

Chaytor had a lot to lose: his livelihood depended on the case, the court heard. This, argued the police prosecutor, Sergeant Garry Rowe, was his motive to embellish the truth. In his 21-page statement Chaytor had conveniently left out details of his SMS to her, he said. Chaytor said the apologetic message referred to "six months of difficulty our relationship had had" but that she too apologised, admitting she had "gone crazy".

She had a motive to exaggerate, said Chaytor's lawyer, Phillip Boulten, SC. She wanted to punish him by ending his career because she believed he cared more about it than her, he said.