Former Australian Olympic basketballer Danny Morseu has been found guilty on one count of bodily harm for punching a woman in the head eight times.

Jurors took about six hours to reach their unanimous verdict on Wednesday after Mr Morseu had earlier pleaded not guilty in Cairns District Court.

Judge Dean Morzone sentenced Mr Morseu to 18 months in prison, suspended after four months. 

Judge Morzone said Mr Morseu's offending was out of character, but the victim would endure lasting harm from a "sustained attack".

"It was unprovoked and you were far more powerful in your physicality than she was," he said.

"You’ve suffered significant reputational damage with a profound fall from grace as a result of this offending."

The jury found him not guilty on charges of common assault and deprivation of liberty.

Mr Morseu remained emotionless during the verdict.

He denied ever hitting the woman in a Far North Queensland community in 2022 after an evening of drinking together in three bars.

Further details have been withheld for legal reasons.

Mr Morseu played for Australia in the 1980 and 1984 Olympics, was named in the NBL Hall of Fame, played with the Brisbane Bullets and the St Kilda Saints, and played for and coached the Toowoomba Mountaineers.

Judge Dean Morzone closed the court for several hours while the woman took the stand on Monday and Tuesday.

Security camera footage from one of the bars they attended in which Mr Morseu was involved in an altercation with a patron was played to the court.

Mr Morseu could be seen throwing a drink on a table and getting into a fight with another man.

A scuffle ensued involving other people in the bar.

Neighbour raises alarm

Crown prosecutor Tim Watkins told the court Mr Morseu and the woman returned to a home where it was alleged Mr Morseu punched her eight times for "between 40 to 50 seconds" continuously in the head, before twice refusing to let her leave.

"She thought she was going to die. She saw black twice," Mr Watkins said.

A next-door neighbour, who called the police, told the court she heard continuous screaming for up to 20 minutes in the middle of the night.

"It was a female voice screaming for help very loud," she said.

A police officer told the court he attended the home in the early hours of the following morning and found the woman on the veranda with "quite a significant amount of blood on her face".

His body-worn camera footage, shown in court, showed Mr Morseu seated at a dining room table with his legs crossed, wearing green shorts and a Deadly Choices shirt.

He said several times that he never hit the woman.

He said the woman hit him in the chest and was aggressive toward him.

"I don't know what happened. She went to the bathroom. She must've done something to her face," Mr Morseu said in the body-worn footage.

Doctor's evidence states self-inflicted wounds unlikely

Erin Jeffrey, a doctor on duty at the nearby hospital at the time, examined the complainant around 1am on the night of the incident.

Dr Jeffrey said she stitched a 2-centimetre cut on her left eyebrow and told the court there was also swelling, tenderness, and slight bruising to the woman's left eyelid, left ear, and left thumb.

She said she would consider it very unlikely that the cut was self-inflicted.

Intensive care emergency medicine specialist Adam Holyoak told the court he treated the woman three days later.

He said he noted bruising and pain concentrated around the woman's head and neck and "noticeably two very big black eyes".

Asked by the prosecution if the bruising was from multiple blunt forces, Dr Holyoak replied: "It would be very difficult to sustain this from a single blunt force."