The man is on trial in the Wellington District Court, where he denies 16 charges, including male assaults female, suffocation, assault with a weapon, ill-treatment of an animal, supplying a Class C controlled drug to a young person, and common assault.
Because he is self-represented and giving evidence in his own defence, the judge read out the allegations to him.
As he did so, the man dismissed each allegation, describing them with a range of terms, including “lies”, “bulls***”, “utter crap” and “completely incorrect”.
During his testimony, the man frequently went off on tangents that, at times, were difficult to follow.
As a result, he received several warnings from the judge to only give evidence that was relevant to the current charges.
‘A whipped-up woman who wants me in her life’
The charges relate to a woman, whose name is also suppressed, whom he met on Tinder. He later moved in with her and her teenage son.
It is during this time that the Crown says the relationship soured, with the mother and son describing how the man was allegedly violent and controlling towards them.
The teenager told the court he was repeatedly hit in the face, had spray cans hurled at him and was whacked in the head with a back scratcher so hard that he cried.
It is also alleged the man beat the family dog with an electrical cord and dangled it by its legs.
Earlier in the trial, the woman described the man as violent and controlling and said the situation resembled a “house of horrors”.
But in his evidence, the man alleged she was the controlling one.
He told the court that when he moved in, “the house was rat-infested, the dog s*** everywhere” and it was filled with teenagers who “would urinate on the leather couches because they were so high”.
In her evidence, the woman said the relationship was initially romantic but began to strain after about eight months, when they were living together.
After his arrest, the woman told police, “I want my life back, and I don’t want to see him anymore. I want him to move on like he promised.”
Today, the man told the court it was that unwillingness to commit to a romantic relationship that led to these charges, showing the jury a message the woman had texted him.
“I want my happy life where I can have someone in my life who loves me as a significant other, you don’t want me, so why should I stay?” the woman’s message said.
“This is all about a whipped-up woman who wants me in her life, basically providing everything she wants for free out of me,” he told the jury.
“It’s not going to happen. She’s already got everything, so there‘s nothing more to take.”
It’s a theme he repeated, telling the jury, “she just wants a man, and she wants a partner”.
But the man reiterated that he wasn’t interested, “I’m just a man with a broken neck and fighting the system, that’s it.”
‘I’ve been harassed by the Crown and the police’
In his opening address to the jury, the man said he was abused in state care, including being locked in cells from the age of 7.
“I’ve been harassed by the police and the Crown.
“This woman done this to me, said I suffocated her. That’s a lie, that’s a 100% lie. She had left prior to the incident, left and abandoned her child. She had rehearsed this stuff with the police,” he told the jury.
As a result of these charges, he told the jury, he’d spent two years in custody and lost his freedom.
‘How about I punch you in the f***** face?’
During cross-examination by prosecutor Wilber Tupua, the man denied that he was angry while he lived at the house, and when he got angry, he got violent.
“No, not at all,” the man responded, claiming the woman had stabbed him with a pair of scissors.
He also denied punching the woman in the face.
The court earlier heard evidence from two witnesses who saw her on a night she was alleged to have been assaulted and described her as looking scared, slightly wet and with a bloody nose. A third witness took her to the hospital.
But the man insisted he didn’t punch her, adding that if he had, her face would be smashed.
“How about I punch you in the f***** face?” he suggested to Tupua at one point.
He also told the jury his injuries, which included a broken back and neck, from past accidents, made it impossible to inflict the injuries he’s accused of.
He was also adamant he’d never abused the dog, claiming he had hand-reared it since it was a puppy and it was his dog.
“They’ve stolen my dog Wilber, and I am not happy.
“You’re trying to rark me up, aren’t you? You think people can get away with stealing my dog? Using the state to furnish their needs because I have a history,” he said.
Again, as Tupua listed the allegations, the man denied them all.
The trial before Judge Hobbs is expected to continue until the end of the week.
Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter, based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently she was working as a media adviser at the Ministry of Justice.