Jimmy Bartel lashes out at shocking call to forgive Tarryn Thomas over allegations about him and women - after footy great revealed his own mother's domestic violence hell

AFL legend Jimmy Bartel has slammed the possibility that disgraced former North Melbourne player Tarryn Thomas could be back on the footy field next season.

Thomas, 24, is without a club after being sacked by North Melbourne in February after further allegations about his behaviour towards women emerged.

He has been put on a behaviour program and will only be allowed to return to the AFL if league bosses are satisfied that he has turned a corner.

Essendon coach Brad Scott believes the troubled star deserves a second chance, but Bartel - who experienced and witnessed awful domestic violence while growing up - isn't so sure.

'I feel very uncomfortable with it. I get the whole premise of forgiveness and chances, he's had a number of chances with his alleged behaviour,' Bartel said on Nine's Footy Classified show.

'But at some stage there's got to be a fork in the road, because the forgiveness angle hasn't worked. The numbers are actually getting worse.

'I was part of a campaign that was seven years ago, trying to very visually put the AFL as a leader, saying no to domestic violence, starting conversations, parents with children. And we're getting worse.

'So I get your premise of, the AFL, we can lead the charge, we can rehabilitate, we can be a leader in this space. 

'But this whole, forgiveness, try again try again, is not working. So at some stage, what happened in the past ... we've actually got to go a bit more of a different direction. I lean a bit towards more zero tolerance than others because that's personal to me.

'I'm open to all discussions but I feel incredibly uncomfortable that we're gonna have players arm-in-arm, another woman dies ... I just find it very hard.'

He later added: 'At some stage the privilege has got to run out. Playing AFL football, we talk about this with the drugs issue, it's a privilege to play AFL.

'It was a privilege to get multiple opportunities. And now you're being spoken about with the privilege of getting another lifeline? Throw your arms around him, support him, but you don't have to do that at AFL level.'

Bartel has previously explained how he 'watched his mother crawling away from the abusive hands' of his father when he was just four years old.

'When you still turn on the news or the radio or you pick up a newspaper there are still women and children dying,' Bartel said in 2019.

'That's the thing, they're dying at the hands of people who claim to be their loved ones.'

In 2016, Bartel went into harrowing detail about one of the incidents he witnessed.

'I remember Mum being on the floor in the hallway; he had repeatedly hit her, and she was trying to crawl away from him,' he said.

'I remember Olivia [his eldest sister] trying to push him away from Mum, and he physically threw her against the wall, like a rag doll, which is hard to comprehend.'

Jimmy said his other sister hid under the bed and he was soon 'thrown' as he tried to stand between his parents, before his father 'belted' his mother again.

'That was a major turning point in my life,' he said.

Decades later, the Cats premiership winner is now a proud father and admitted starting his own family 'triggered his passion' to help others.