A former prostitute accused of bashing Nicholas Katopodis to death at her Mount St Thomas home in 2011 has denied suggestions she inflicted the fatal blows to his head after he propositioned her for sex.
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One-time escort Aroha Hiroki and her former boyfriend and first cousin, Jason Hiroki, are on trial in the NSW Supreme Court accused of jointly murdering Mr Katopodis at their Gladstone Avenue home on July 27, following a night of heavy drinking and cannabis smoking.
However, the former lovers have each denied the charge and are instead accusing each other of carrying out the killing.
During her third day in the witness box on Wednesday, Aroha Hiroki faced intense cross-examination from Jason Hiroki's lawyer, Janet Manuell, SC, who suggested that Aroha's past employment at three Illawarra brothels may have come back to haunt her.
The court previously heard evidence that Mr Katopodis was a regular user of escort services in the region and lived a few kilometres away from a brothel in Unanderra, where Aroha Hiroki had once worked.
"I suggest to you that Nick Katopodis recognised you from the brothel and asked you for sex," Ms Manuell said.
"He tried to grab you, didn't he? Then you kneed him in the groin and hit him [repeatedly] in the head."
"No, that's not true," Aroha Hiroki replied.
Ms Manuell suggested that CCTV footage from outside the Coniston Hotel that night, where the couple had gone for a drink some time after Mr Katopodis' death, showed Aroha Hiroki re-enacting the sequence of events for Jason Hiroki, who claimed to have been in an alcohol and drug-induced sleep on the couch when Mr Katopodis was killed.
"Do you agree that footage shows you to step backwards, squat down and slap your hands against your knees ... indicating you're laughing at something?" Ms Manuell asked.
"You then throw a pretend punch with your right hand and raise your right knee.
"I suggest you were recreating for Jason what had happened that night in the lounge room when he was asleep ... you thought it was really funny that a man like [Mr Katopodis] thought he could get a sexual favour from you."
"That's not true," Aroha Hiroki replied, saying she couldn't make out what she was doing in the footage, but denied she was laughing or telling Jason Hiroki about what had happened.
She said Jason Hiroki was responsible for Mr Katopodis' death, saying he repeatedly hit the deceased in the head with a beer bottle and a lawn bowl.
Crown prosecutor Tony McCarthy is expected to give his closing address to the jury on Thursday morning.
