This paper presents a neural network modelling method for damage behaviour of composite materials in conjunction with full-field strain measurements. The proposed method utilises the overall structural response of a laminate composite specimen to develop the constitutive model of a single ply unidirectional laminate. Based on an energy principle, a performance function for training the neural networks is derived in terms of the applied external work and the induced strain energy. This allows the proposed method to develop the neural networks without the presence of stress information that is not necessarily obtainable in experiments with non-uniform deformation. The use of neural networks also enables the proposed method to model the damage behaviour without the constraints on the parameter space, such that a more representative model is developed for the actual material behaviour. An example of tailoring the proposed method to model the in-plane shear damage behaviour of a carbon fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP) laminate is demonstrated as well as its numerical validation. The practical application of the proposed method to multi-axial damage-related nonlinear behaviour of composite is presented using the experimental data obtained from a tensile test with an open-hole specimen.