Rayney defends phone tap claim

Lloyd Rayney hired a man to put a recording device in the roof of his house while his wife and daughters went shopping interstate, a jury was told yesterday.

Mr Rayney, who was acquitted in 2012 of murdering his wife Corryn , was back in the dock yesterday to answer allegations he illegally recorded her phone conversations in the days before her 2007 disappearance.

Almost eight years after allegedly hiring a man to tap the telephone in his Como house so he could listen to what his wife was saying about him, Mr Rayney returned to the same court where his murder trial was conducted to defend himself against accusations which could land him in jail.

Mr Rayney denies two charges under Commonwealth law that he aided, abetted, counselled or procured the interception of communications - those being the calls Mrs Rayney made and received in July 2007.

Prosecutor Lesley Taylor told the jury he did that in the context of a marriage that was on the rocks and had become "very acrimonious". Emails between the couple would show "the mistrust and occasional venom" in their marriage, she said.

"Each distrusted the other and worried what was being said about them," Ms Taylor said.

That prompted Mr Rayney to approach a lawyer friend Clare O'Brien and ask her to "help him with surveillance", the prosecutor said.

This in turn led Mr Rayney to Tim Pearson, who ran a technology company called Quickstream, she said.

The court was told that after money and instructions had allegedly changed hands, Mr Pearson bought a recording device and put it into the roof space in the Rayney home, while Mrs Rayney and their two daughters were in Melbourne shopping.

When she returned, Mr Rayney allegedly received DVDs from Mr Pearson with recordings of phone calls on them - which the lawyer then played on a laptop that was later seized by police.

After allegedly instructing Mr Pearson to remove the device from his house, there was no more contact between the men - until police recorded conversations between the pair in September, during the investigation into Mrs Rayney's death.

Mr Rayney's lawyer David Edwardson described that investigation as "flawed" - and urged the 16 jurors to discard any impression they may have of Mr Rayney after the murder trial in 2012.

"There is nothing worse than being falsely accused of a crime . . . the stigma can remain for ever in people's minds," Mr Edwardson said.

The District Court trial is expected to last nine days.