Corinna Horvath suffered a broken nose, suspected broken jaw, chipped tooth and bruising to the back of her head on the night of March 9, 1996, when officers forced their way into her Hastings home. She was 21 at the time.

The police raid was found to be unlawful by a County Court judge in a civil trial, and in 2016 Victoria's Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission charged Leading Senior Constable David Jenkin with intentionally causing serious injury, recklessly causing serious injury, intentionally causing injury and recklessly causing injury.

Leading Senior Constable Jenkin, 48, is yet to enter a plea but his lawyer on Wednesday said he would plead not guilty.

On the first day of a hearing to determine whether the policeman faces a criminal trial, Ms Horvath told Melbourne Magistrates Court she was in her lounge when the room was lit up by the headlights of police vehicles, and soon after she heard officers yelling outside.

She said one officer screamed: "I don't need a f...ing warrant. We want Corinna."

Asked by defence counsel Geoffrey Steward why she didn't go to the front door, Ms Horvath hit back: "Are you absolutely kidding me? Why would I open the door to a bunch of male coppers who were screaming they wanted me? I was ready to go [out the back]. I was scared shitless."

Ms Horvath said she remembered being told by a friend she would be OK in her home, but her next memories were of smashing glass, being flipped over and then being put in a divvy van, crying, screaming and feeling her face wet and sticky with blood.

Mr Steward read her a previous statement in which she recalled being face down on the floor of her lounge being punched to the head. On Wednesday she told the court she could not remember being struck, as she had blocked out some memories over the years.

Her partner, Craig Love, later told the court he saw Leading Senior Constable Jenkin punch Ms Horvath three times to the face while she was handcuffed and lying on the floor. The policeman later stood Ms Horvath up, Mr Love said, but she was "not recognising what was going on".

"She just looked dazed," he said.

Mr Love said Leading Senior Constable Jenkin threw Ms Horvath to the floor when the police first smashed their way inside, while another officer, Ian Christensen, hit her with a baton to the back of the head while she was lying face down.

The raid came the night after Leading Senior Constable Jenkin and colleague Stephen Davison pulled over Ms Horvath and Mr Love and declared Ms Horvath's Torana unroadworthy, which angered her.

The following day the two officers attended the house while the couple were hosting a barbecue, on the belief the Torana had been driven illegally, and Ms Horvath and Leading Senior Constable Jenkin grabbed each other in a scuffle. She told the policeman he could not be on the property without a warrant.

When the police returned hours later, Mr Love said, the policeman punched his partner hard "enough to cause her to scream and be subdued". Sergeant Christensen dragged Mr Love to the floor by his hair and he was handcuffed, the court heard.

Ms Horvath had used marijuana on the day of the raid and Mr Love had drunk up to 12 beers, but both denied they were overly affected. They also denied doing anything that would have caused an injury to police, though Ms Horvath admitted she probably would have insulted Leading Senior Constable Jenkin the first time he was at the house.

The couple said they were both also assaulted by officers when taken to Hastings police station afterwards.

Ms Horvath said officers laughed at her when she was led into the station. She was thrown a towel and told to clean herself up before Senior Constable Davison pushed her into a cell with a baton, using enough force to make her fall, the court heard.

It was at least 30 minutes before she was seen by a doctor, she said, all the while with "my face bleeding and my head pounding". Mr Love was in a nearby cell calling for a doctor to see her, the court heard.

Under cross-examination, Ms Horvath said she and Mr Love were harassed by police before the raid, and regularly stopped for roadworthy checks on their cars. Their home had also been raided before as they used marijuana at the time.

Ms Horvath admitted she was anti-authoritarian as a young woman and stood up for herself, but denied hating every police officer, "just some".

She told the court she had been assaulted by other police three times before the raid: once in the Frankston police cells; once in her home when a female officer struck her in front of a detective; and another time when she was arrested for drunkenness.

The hearing continues.