The lawyer for a prominent New Zealander on trial for indecent assault has accused one of the complainants of a "made up story" because he failed to get money out of the businessman.
The complainant told the court he was at the businessman's home for a meeting to discuss funding in 2008.
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After dinner and drinks he says he began to feel 'dizzy'. He says he subsequently considered whether he had been drugged.
"That didn't occur to me until the next day when I was feeling better and could process what had happened."
The complainant says the businessman "touched me and I was feeling terrible and that's when I made the decision to call a taxi and get out of there".
The complainant's partner told the court that he remembers him arriving home.
"I remember very vividly standing in driveway watching him approach me and being immediately quite concerned about the state he was in. He seemed very disassociated, he seemed not himself and just removed."
The charge of indecent assault relates to allegations the prominent New Zealander squeezed the complainant's bottom and kissed him on the back of the neck.
"I harbour resentment but not due to the fact that he didn't fund me, it is due to the fact he assaulted me," said the complainant.
The businessman is also facing a charge of indecent assault relating to an alleged incident in October 2016.
Crown Prosecutor Simon Foote says the complainant in that case was staying at the businessman's home when he felt ill and weak, possibly as a result of food poisoning. He says the businessman lay on the bed and reached inside the man's shorts.
The businessman is also charged with two counts of perverting the course of justice by attempting to dissuade one of the complainants from giving evidence in his trial.
A well-known entertainer is also on trial and faces three charges of attempting to dissuade the same complainant.
In the first attempt the entertainer allegedly offering $15000 to one of the complainants, who recorded the conversation on his phone.
The prominent businessman had previously transferred the money to the entertainer but his lawyer David Jones QC says it was a normal business transaction and unrelated.
The second attempt is the so-called the 'Gold Coast' plot where a public relations expert was allegedly hired to offer career opportunities to the complainant.
The crown says a final attempt to obstruct justice was in the week before the trial was first set down to begin in September 2018.
The prominent New Zealander's name suppression was revoked yesterday, but he appealed meaning he cannot yet be named.
Newshub.
