Woman's 'thug' victims turn out to be police A child safety officer who hit a police officer in the face when he tried to break up a fight between the men she was in a love triangle with has had her conviction upheld. Kym Maree Stehbens was convicted of assaulting a police officer but successfully appealed it on the grounds she did not see him produce a police badge and therefore did not know he was an officer. Her appeal has since been quashed, however, with the Supreme Court ruling her evidence was not reliable because she was drunk and in a "highly charged emotional state" after she had a few beers and her partner and ex-boyfriend got in a fight. On April Fool's Day in 2010 Ms Stehbens, 43 years old at the time, was at Mt Isa Hotel with her boyfriend Graham Hilton for a farewell party. She had been through a bad break-up with Rudi Pecchiar, who was working at the hotel that night, and when she and Mr Hilton decided to leave about 11.30pm the men got into a scuffle at the doorway. Police officers Matthew John Udovicich and Anthony Dean Steers were off-duty that night and having dinner at the hotel with Officer Udovicich's wife. The pair saw the scuffle and while breaking it up pinned Mr Hilton to the ground. Stehbens then pounced on them, trying to pull the officers off her boyfriend. "I'd started to go out the door and then as I turned around I've realised that these two officers had come - they came running in and I don't know who that - like, at that point I didn't know who they were," she told the court. They were just to me, just two thugs, probably friends of Rudi's that he'd organised to come and - and, you know - intervene. Stehbens hit Officer Udovicich in the face twice while trying to pull him off Mr Hilton. She later said she did not find out he was a police officer until she was arrested. She argued she did not see Officer Udovicich show his badge. However, three other witnesses said they saw him do it. Stehbens had used the legal argument she had an "honest and reasonable but mistaken belief" about the status of the police officer. However, the Supreme Court did not find in her favour and reinstated her conviction. "Given what His Honour [the judge who reversed the conviction] said about her reliability and his preference for the evidence of the prosecution witnesses where it was in conflict with hers, I think he must be taken to have impliedly rejected her evidence about not seeing the badge," the judgment said. In the circumstances the appeal to the District Court Judge ought to have been dismissed.