The French judge who convicted Geoffrey Boycott of assaulting his girlfriend has criticised the former England cricketer after he was knighted and says she stands by her decision to find him guilty.

The move to award Boycott the honour prompted outrage this week from a domestic violence charity. He was convicted in 1998 of assaulting Margaret Moore, who was left with black eyes after he hit her 20 times.

Boycott, who has always denied the offence, said he “couldn’t give a toss” about criticism over Theresa May awarding him a knighthood, and cast doubt on the credibility of French justice.

But after being tracked down by the Guardian in Alsace, Dominique Haumant, who presided over trial, said she did not believe Boycott’s denial and that his conduct during the court case had been “arrogant” and “deplorable”.

“I cannot believe he’s being received by the Queen,” she said. “I’m told she will take a sword and anoint him on each shoulder. Now that I’m really shocked at. He doesn’t deserve it.

“As far as French justice is concerned, he has been found guilty of having beaten his partner three times.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Dominique Haumant, the trial judge: ‘If I didn’t think he was guilty I wouldn’t have convicted him.’ Photograph: Handout

The retired judge said: “I remember this case very well and I remember the row about it even after 20 years. I saw all the photos, the evidence, the statements and if I didn’t think he was guilty I wouldn’t have convicted him.”

Boycott was fined £5,300 and given a three-month suspended jail sentence, upheld by a second court on appeal. He was also ordered to pay a symbolic one franc in compensation to Moore.

The 78-year-old former England captain, who has been commentating for Channel 5 and BBC Radio 5 Live during this summer’s Ashes series, has always denied the charges and claimed Moore was a “woman scorned” exacting her revenge.

“Boycott was most definitely not a gentleman,” Haumant said. “He told one of the opposing lawyers to shut up during the hearing. That was extremely vulgar and not something you say during a hearing. I can’t imagine a judge in your country allowing that, and I wouldn’t allow it.”

The judge, who retired in 2009, said she had not been convinced by Boycott’s story. “His version was that Madame Moore had fallen on the carpet. I definitely remember it was carpet [not marble] because I remarked that she didn’t get two black eyes from falling on the thick carpet of a luxury hotel.

“He claimed it was an accident, but, as I say, if I convicted him it was because I thought he was guilty and I stand by that. He appealed and my judgment was upheld by the appeal court.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Margaret Moore in court with photos of the injuries she suffered. Photograph: Jean-Paul Pélissier/Reuters

“It is more than 20 years ago, but I still remember his behaviour in the courtroom. He was arrogant and he had a deplorable attitude throughout the trial.”

After he was convicted in the court in Grasse, on the Côte d’Azur, Boycott took a swipe at the French judge, saying he was not entirely surprised to be found guilty “in view of the way the trial was conducted”. He claimed that unlike the UK, the legal system in France rested on the principle of “guilty until proven innocent”.

In a BBC interview following his knighthood, Boycott repeated the claims. “It’s a court case in France where you’re guilty, which is one of the reasons I [didn’t] vote to remain in Europe, because you’re guilty until you’re proved innocent. That’s totally the opposite from England and it’s very difficult to prove you’re innocent in another country and another language.”

He said he did not care about condemnation of his honour from a leading domestic violence charity. Responding to Adina Claire, the co-acting chief executive of Women’s Aid, who described his knighthood as part of former prime minister Theresa May’s resignation honours list as “extremely disappointing”, Boycott told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme presenter Martha Kearney: “I don’t give a toss about her, love.”

He said: “Twenty-five years ago, love, in a French court, she [Moore] tried to blackmail me for £1m. I said no, because in England if you pay any money at all, we think: ‘Hang on, there must be something there.’ I said: ‘I’m not paying anything’ … I’m not sure I’d actually got a million at the time.”

Play Video 1:20 Geoffrey Boycott rejects criticism of his knighthood – audio

The French legal system, like the British, is based on the principle that a defendant is innocent until proven guilty. All but the most serious crimes and offences, those carrying a prison sentence of 10 years or more, are tried without a jury.

People are not “charged” with a crime or offence in France, they are “put under investigation”. Before the case comes to trial, an investigating magistrate known as a juge d’instruction tells police to collect evidence and takes witness statements to produce a case file to determine whether an offence has been committed.

If the magistrate decides there is no charge to answer, the case is classé, or dropped. If the magistrate decides there is a case to answer, the person is sent to trial and the file, available to the lawyers of all interested parties, is presented to the trial judge.

There were three hearings in the Moore v Boycott case. He was first convicted of assault in January 1998 by judge Marc Juando at a court in Grasse. He was not present for the hearing and appealed successfully to have the verdict set aside.

Haumant presided over a second trial in Grasse in November 1998 that confirmed the verdict of the first. Boycott appealed and a panel of three judges upheld the conviction in May 2000.

The November 1998 trial was long and at times chaotic. Boycott was said to have flown 13 witnesses to the south of France at an estimated cost of more than £200,000, but many appeared to have nothing to say directly about the accusations. They included a psychiatrist who had never met Moore but gave his interpretation of her behaviour from television clips and conversations with her former husband.

Haumant remembers sitting until the early hours of the morning hearing witnesses, many of them appearing for Boycott, all of whose testimony had to be translated. “It was a long trial, but then there were a lot of witnesses, most of them for the defendant,” she said.

The verdict in January had been set aside because Boycott failed to turn up to the brief hearing, explaining he was on tour commentating on Test matches in South Africa.

Boycott and Moore were staying at the Hotel du Cap in Antibes in October 1996 when they argued. Moore was reported to have become even more furious when she returned to their hotel room to find Boycott packing for an early flight back to the UK.

He claimed she had slipped in the ensuing fracas while throwing his clothing and belongings out of the window.

Moore said he had attacked her, holding her to the ground and staring at her with “wild, piercing and manic” eyes as he hit her.

In her seven-page written explanation of her verdict, Haumant, who told British journalists covering the trial that her hero was the suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, made it clear she was not impressed with Boycott’s behaviour in or out of court.

“In the court, the accused didn’t hesitate to interrupt Mrs Moore’s lawyer rudely, tarnishing the image of the perfect gentleman which he brought his old friends and witnesses to testify to,” she wrote at the time. She said the evidence presented to the court “does not support the theory of an accidental fall” and ruled that Moore had been the victim of “purposeful blows”.

Boycott accused Moore of blackmailing him to settle for a large sum of money, but she said it was never about cash. She asked for and was awarded the symbolic one franc damages. Boycott, labelled a woman-beater and criminal, found it difficult to shake off the stain on his reputation, even when Moore’s former solicitor Sue Sims-Steward said Moore saw Boycott as a way of solving financial problems and portrayed the victim as a difficult woman who could “turn on the tears at will”.

“It’s no surprise to me that he’s been given an honour,” said Haumant. “I remember reading a profile of Theresa May in the French magazine l’Express when she said her great idol was not the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, but Geoffrey Boycott.

“On the other hand it is surprising because of what he did,” she said.

“I was heavily criticised for my judgment to the point I worried that I’d better not go to the UK because I wouldn’t be safe in the street. I remember an article that made fun of me for not knowing anything about cricket, but why would I?”

A spokesman for Boycott did not comment.