Warning – contains content that may disturb some readers

The lawyer for a Rotorua man charged with 'grooming and sexual abuse of young boys in the late 90s and 2000s” has hit back at one complainant, telling him 'grooming” was 'just a word you've learnt in rehab”.

The combative exchange took place at Rotorua District Court on Monday where Sean Victor Tipene Smale​, 53, is on trial, charged with six counts of sexually abusing young boys.

Some of the charges date back as far as 1997 and one is representative, meaning it is alleged the abuse took place more than once.

Crown prosecutor Anna McConachy​ began her opening address to the six men and six women of the jury warning them they would hear 'confronting” evidence about the alleged abuse.

She said Smale engaged in 'the grooming and sexual abuse of young boys back in the late 90s and 2000s.”

She said that given the historic nature of the allegations, there would be no DNA evidence, and the case would depend solely on whether they determined the three complainants were 'telling the truth”.

She said the alleged abuse took place when Smale was in his 30s. His alleged victims, who he would invite to stay at his house, would be aged 12 and 13.

McConachy said Smale's house was a place they were able to 'smoke, drink and there weren't really any rules in place”.

She also alleged one incident of abuse took place in Tauranga.

Sean Victor Tipene Smale faces a number of child sex abuse charges against three complainants, some dating back to the late 1990s. Photo: Benn Bathgate/Stuff.

'Smale came into the shower then started to wash him ... then started to play with his penis.”

McConachy said Smale told the boy 'don't tell your dad, it's a secret between us”.

She said the witnesses would prove a pattern of behaviour where Smale would 'groom young boys to facilitate his offending”.

The first witness to give evidence said he came from a troubled background and was distant from both his mother in Auckland, and his father in Rotorua.

He said friends took him to Smale's as this was somewhere they knew alcohol would be available.

He also said Smale questioned him about his relationship with his parents, something he said he later realised was the start of the grooming.

'That's what groomers do, he profiled me.”

He said they would often drink to excess, smoke cannabis, and that Smale's house was 'a place we could go and do what we wanted”.

He also revealed how he would wake up to find Smale performing a sex act on him.

'More than once, a lot, probably every week,” he said.

'I'd just let it happen ... freeze up, ‘cause it's f...... terrifying.”

At points through his evidence the witness would stare directly at Smale, just a few feet away and taking notes. At some points he cried as he spoke.

He said he learnt to 'block what he was doing to me out”.

'I just got used to not having anyone to turn to.”

He said he maintained contact with Smale in the years after the abuse, even using his house as a bail address, but it was when entering methamphetamine rehab he began to think about the abuse.

'[The counsellor] told me to let whatever's happened to me out ... that's when I started telling people what happened.”

He also cried when he was asked about a second complainant.

'He was my best friend ... feels like my fault.”

Smale's defence lawyer Steve Gill also questioned the witness, taking a combative tone from the start.

'None of this abuse on you ever occurred did it?” he asked.

'You still came back, every week, to get more of it ... to be abused.”

The witness said this happened simply because he was not 'a normal child with a good upbringing”.

'He groomed me pretty good ... he must have if I was still writing and still contacting,” the witness said.

Gill told him his claims were 'so unplausible it's simply not true”.

During one exchange the witness said 'they're called groomers for a reason,” with Gill replying: 'That's just a word you've learnt in rehab”.

'I was 12 years old coming from a lifestyle where I felt no one gives a f...,” he said.

'We were all disturbed young people. I didn't feel safe and secure, but I felt I had a home, as f...... up as that is.”

The trial is set to continue.

-Benn Bathgtate/Stuff.