MacGregor on Craig: ‘He was sort of dorky’
Colin Craig’s former press secretary Rachel MacGregor says despite the politician’s “dodgy poems”, shoulder massages and “sleep trick” she felt she was forced to stay in the job.
The former TVNZ journalist turned PR adviser spoke at the High Court at Auckland yesterday during the ongoing defamation case between the former Conservative Party leader and blogger Cameron Slater.
When MacGregor was first approached to be Craig’s press secretary she said she found him to be a badly dressed “jovial chap”. “He was sort of dorky,” she told the court.
Initially hired part-time, she quickly became a full-time staffer as she tried to provide Craig with an “image that was worthy of public discussion”.
She said she had put up with “inappropriate males” at TVNZ, but that Craig mentioning the cut of her top was too low, followed by a letter, made her uneasy and the pair talked of setting professional boundaries.
Slater’s lawyer, Brian Henry, asked MacGregor about a Christmas letter Craig wrote to her in 2014. The letter also included two love poems. “It was awful actually,” she said. She also spoke of Craig’s “sleep trick” and shoulder massages for his “horrendous pain”.
“[The sleep trick], he reckons it was him imagining himself lying on my legs,” she said. “[And] he would ask me to rub his shoulders — to help him perform in his interviews.”
Henry asked MacGregor about election night in 2011, when Craig kissed her and touched her breast.
MacGregor said she “lost faith” in Craig. However: “I had to keep my job to stay afloat really.” The trial continues today. — Sam Hurley