A woman will serve 600 hours of community work and 17-months of home detention after being sentenced in the Tauranga District Court for various offences including biting a policeman.

Samantha Holland was sentenced today after earlier this year being charged in Taranaki with aggravated assault on a police officer, wilful damage and common assault.

File picture.

The charges relate to an incident in Taranaki where she had been drinking alcohol with friends.

Police were called to the address, arrested Holland and proceeded to place her in the back of a police car.

She then bit an officer on his bicep and kicked the door out of the car, buckling the framework.

Holland had her case transferred from Taranaki to Tauranga after moving town a few weeks ago to 'give her a break”, says her lawyer, Glenn Dixon.

Glenn told the court Holland had been the subject of domestic violence on a number of occasions.

'After she was released on bail, her partner broke her ribs and gave her concussion. Something she is still suffering from, five months after the fact,” says Glenn.

'She is deeply remorseful for assaulting the police officer as he had had a hand in putting her partner away for assaulting her.

'In fact, he had just come out of jail after serving nine months of an 18 month sentence when the incident occurred.”

Judge Thomas Ingram says her history is a 'long way from being flash”.

He says since February 2011, she has appeared in court on numerous charges including resisting police, excess breath alcohol, disorderly behaviour and possession of an offensive weapon.

'If home detention wasn't available, I would send you to prison.”

Parts of Holland's home detention conditions ban her from having any sort of contact with alcohol.

Judge Ingram warned her if she touched a glass or can with alcohol and he found out about it, he would send her to prison.