Craig’s attack tactics revealed in court

Colin Craig told his lawyer he planned to expose Rachel MacGregor’s ‘‘performance failures’’ during a media storm in which he and his former press secretary would ‘‘both end up bloodied’’.

An email Craig wrote to his lawyer, John McKay, detailing the plan was read out in the High Court at Auckland yesterday as the former Conservative Party leader and Whaleoil blogger Cameron Slater sue each other for defamation.

The correspondence took place in June 2015, before a sexual harassment complaint MacGregor took against Craig was settled in mediation. It describes Craig’s strategy to counter the claim.

‘‘If Rachel’s claim is released to media the damage publically [sic] would be significant,’’ Craig, who denied any sexual harassment, wrote to McKay. ‘‘... If this goes public the advice I have is to issue a statement advising of her performance failures ... The angle is ‘blackmail attempt fails’ - once you work it through it is a good angle.

‘‘It will be a media storm of course and we both end up bloodied. In reality though I have nothing left to lose if her claim is printed already - I at least get to balance the story.’’

The judge-alone trial was originally set down for three weeks, but is expected to go longer.