The entertainment industry figure battling 25 sex crime charges, including rape, has told the jury his wife “didn’t mind me sleeping with other women”.

But the man, who can’t be named for legal reasons, said in his evidence that there was one condition.

“As long as I didn’t fall in love with them – which I did, and she got upset.”

As the trial at the High Court in Rotorua ended its ninth week – it was originally scheduled for six weeks – the man also strenuously denied all the allegations against him, which span almost a decade and encompass nine complainants.

He faces a total of 25 charges, including rape, indecent assault, sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection, assault with intent to commit sexual violation, attempted sexual violation, indecent assault and attempting to pervert justice.

He’s also alleged to have drugged women to aid his sex offending, and it can be revealed the allegations refer to multiple locations across the North Island.

Defence lawyer Ron Mansfield KC had told the jury earlier in the trial that his client denied all the allegations against him, many of them the result of what he described as a “me too fest”.

The man was popular, he said, so didn’t need to “resort to that type of technique to have sex with women”.

Asked by Mansfield whether he had assaulted the women, he said “I haven’t assaulted any women”.

He admitted to sleeping with women other than his wife, but denied forcing himself on women or using drugs and alcohol to enable the alleged offending.

The man maintained his innocence under questioning from Crown prosecutor Anna Pollett​ too, who told him if he understood the charges and that he was “not charged with being unfaithful to your wife”.

She also asked him about his drug use, which he admitted was common in the entertainment world he inhabited.

Asked why he used methamphetamine, he said it was because “at the time it was hard to find cocaine”.

Methamphetamine“helped me get through the weekends”, he said, but he preferred cocaine.

“It feels classier... People don’t see it as bad as meth.”

Pollett said the man led “not only a double life, but a triple life” – saying he was at times a family man, had a public business life, and a “dark side” that involved drug abuse, alcohol and illicit sex.

“At home with the kids one minute, at the office working on [entertainment project] the next, or in a hotel having sex,” she said.

“What comes with this is a considerable amount of deceit... You have to lie a lot.”

He said his wife, however, “didn’t mind me sleeping with other women, as long as I didn’t fall in love with them – which I did and she got upset”.

The man was also asked whether he was aware his reputation in the industry “wasn’t a good one”.

“Yes,” he said.

He also conceded the industry was rife with harassment, bullying, abuses of power and sexual abuse.

“That happens in all industries,” he said.

Pollett took a harder stance when she asked the man about a specific complainant, and his “gentlemanly” offer to walk her home.

“What is gentlemanly to walk a woman home, to sexually assault her,” she said.

“That’s a pattern of how you are with women, when they say no you keep going.”

The trial is set to continue.

-Benn Bathgate/Stuff.