Mel B's husband 'not a wife- beater'

Spice Girl singer Mel B has rebuffed claims that her new husband is a wife-beater.

Stephen Belafonte, a film producer, was charged with battery of an ex-girlfriend in May 2003.

Mel B said: "Everything I stand for is about being a strong, independent woman, so for him to be seen as a wife-beater is devastating for me because he's not - he never has been."

Having pleaded no contest to the charge, Belafonte was put on probation and ordered to attend a domestic violence programme.

Mel said her husband had been through counselling and is "fully aware of what he's done."

She added: "He's never hit a woman. If you read those police reports, they never say he physically beat up a woman."

The star secretly married Belafonte in Las Vegas this June after a whirlwind romance.

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