A subordinate’s claims she was in a controlling bondage and discipline relationship with a dominant partner has been challenged by the man’s lawyers, who say the pair were in business together.

They met through Tinder and began a consensual BDSM relationship in 2019. The court heard the woman called the man “Sir” and he called her “Little Whore”.

That man is now before the courts where the Crown alleges he strangled two women until they fell unconscious - one while they were having sex on the bed and the other while they were in the shower.

Crown prosecutor Janielee Avia yesterday told a jury the charges arose from an unusual context and all three were interested in BDSM - involving bondage and discipline, dominance and submission.

“This is not a case of BDSM gone wrong. Both women say being strangled until they lost consciousness wasn’t something they consented to,” she said.

However, the man denies the charges and claims the incidents never happened.

Today the court heard how one of the women took out a lease on an apartment in 2019 so she could conduct sex work. One room had a cage, a big chair and scaffolding with suspension, as well as toys and implements for “kink” sessions.

But in early 2020 the court was told the two had formed a limited liability company to run the apartment as a space for “creatives, kinksters and sex workers” as well as hosting advertised parties. A set of house rules was drawn up.

In March, the national Covid lockdown hit. In May, a post-lockdown party was arranged for those who had worked at the apartment to get together and share their lockdown experiences. At that party the woman said she saw the man mistreat his partner, dragging her out the door. She also spoke to other women, who had similar experiences of feeling dominated by the man.

But the defence said it was the man who severed the relationship, not the other way around.

In her police interview, the woman said she couldn’t talk to other women the man was seeing without him being present. She told police that as the dominant partner, he established a set of rules to live by and weekly tasks she had to do to earn “points” towards a BDSM session with him.

Pornhub: ‘Woohoo, going to be famous’

Lawyer Kate Blackmore suggested to the woman there were no silos and she and the others had ample opportunity to talk to each other as they came and went from the apartment in the months before lockdown. There was also a Facebook chat group for all those connected with the apartment.

The woman responded saying while there was the opportunity to speak at the apartment without the man around, they never did so, confining their conversations to issues around the running of the apartment.

Blackmore said the woman’s suggestion that she had watched the man drag his partner away from the party was also incorrect as no one else had seen it. The woman said that was her recollection.

Earlier the defence pointed to other inconsistencies in the police interview. This included the woman denying she had agreed to do “scenes” involving blood or needles when Facebook messaging showed she had.

She also told police the man had posted a video on Pornhub, without her consent. But a message from the woman showed when he told her the video would be posted on the site, she responded saying; “Woohoo, going to be famous.”

Blackmore also challenged the woman on the weekly tasks that included sex work. The woman told the court she was surprised by the man’s request, given sex work wasn’t something they’d discussed or something she’d done in the past.

But Blackmore put it to her that such a scenario was impossible, given these “tasks” started some three weeks after their first face-to-face meeting over coffee.

The woman explained the man became an integral part of her life very quickly, with the pair talking every day and sharing videos.

Asked why she hadn’t simply ended the relationship by stopping the “tasks” the woman said she wanted to continue developing the relationship with a “professional dom”.

The defence said the pair’s relationship ended with an email from the man to the woman in June 2020, where he said he wanted out of the company and to transfer his shares. His reasons weren’t read out in open court.

Tomorrow the jury will hear from the second complainant. The trial before Judge Bruce Davidson is expected to finish next week.

Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter, based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist for 20 years, including at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently she was working as a media advisor at the Ministry of Justice.