Ladies toilet spat sparked fatal Vic brawl

Two women who didn't know each other argued in the toilets of a Melbourne pub before a car park brawl that left one of them, a 63-year-old mother, dead.

Jacinda Mark, 30, has been charged with manslaughter over the death of Barbara Anderson, who died four days after the incident on April 5 last year.

Mark has pleaded not guilty to the charge, saying she was acting in self-defence when she punched Ms Anderson in the carpark of the Meadow Inn Hotel in the city's north.

Defence barrister John Desmond said on Thursday that Mark was entitled to defend herself.

"My client's hair is violently being pulled and she's screaming out: `let me go, let me go'," Mr Desmond told a Supreme Court jury.

Crown Prosecutor Michelle Williams said Mark made comments that night that were inconsistent with self-defence.

She said witnesses will give evidence that after paramedics were called, Mark was heard to say, "if she doesn't make it through I'm f--ed".

"By that spontaneous utterance she herself knew she was not acting lawfully," Ms Williams said.

She said Mark sent text messages that similarly showed she knew she had acted unlawfully.

The court heard the two women's paths crossed by chance in the pub's ladies toilets and they had an argument.

Ms Williams said Mark told police she had come out of her cubicle when Ms Anderson swore at her and said "oh you dirty f--ing thing you don't even wash your hands".

Mark told police she replied that she had been looking for her phone, the court heard.

CCTV footage will show Mark later saw Ms Anderson in the car park and started chasing her, Ms Williams told the court.

The two had an altercation that wasn't captured by footage, and after Ms Anderson was taken away by ambulance Mark told police she hit her, the court heard.

"I hit her, I hit her a few times, I punched her face," Mark told police, according to Ms Williams.

Mr Desmond said the jury will not be able to conclude that Mark's punching and grabbing of Ms Anderson's chest were the acts that caused her death.

He said medical professionals will give evidence Ms Anderson had only a few small bruises as a result of the struggle.

The trial continues before Justice Christopher Beale.