Assault victim's memory tested by defence counsel in Hamilton District Court trial

The case in the Hamilton District Court is set down for four days.

The memory of a man who claims to have lost an eye in a vicious assault has been tested by the defence.

Elisha Jack Cramond, 26, denies charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice, assault with a motor vehicle, threatening to kill and injuring with intent to injure the victim's partner on August 28, last year.

Cramond, together with Michael Sam Torrington, 28, faces a charge of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm during the alleged incident at Torrington's Waikato farm house.

A jointly laid charge of sexual violation has been dismissed.

The Crown alleges the victim, in his 30s, was beaten in the lounge of Torrington's Kerepehi farm property on the night of August 28 last year.

Crown prosecutor Heidi Wrigley told the jury the victim, his partner and Torrington knew each other. The victim met Cramond on the night of the incident.

Wrigley told the jury of four men and eight women the accused subjected the victim to a "savage assault" that night which included kicks to the head, strangulation and having cow poo and gravel shoved in his face, as well as a finger severely bitten.

His partner was also subjected to an assault, she submitted, after she tried to protect him and was then thrown to the ground and had her face shoved in a puddle where she struggled to breath.

The assault resulted in him now being blind in his right eye as well as suffering memory loss, she said. He'd also had to learn how to talk again.

Ann-Marie Beveridge, counsel for Cramond, had the opportunity to question the complainant this morning.

She put to him that it was his partner who helped him piece together details of what happened that night, rather than he recalling himself.

"Bits and pieces, but not that much," he said.

After confirming he was still with his partner and the fact they lived together, she pressed him again about his recall.

"She has helped me with pieces I remember but she can't help with everything."

As for learning to talk again, he agreed with Beveridge when she put to him that he had spoken to police in a DVD interview played to the court on Tuesday.

He also accepted her submission that it was dark that night as it was pitch black and he was drifting in and out of consciousness.

However, he didn't agree with Cramond's version of events in which, through Beveridge, he said he was punched to the face twice by the complainant.

He then saw his partner in the fight with Torrington and the complainant. He pulled her off and grabbed a bourbon before walking off into another paddock, she said

The complainant said that was wrong and his earlier testimony was actually what happened.

"You can't be sure that Mr Cramond was there in that driveway at that time," Beveridge put to the complainant.

"Nah you're wrong," he replied.

The complainant took to the stand on Monday and told the court he felt the situation changed when Torrington got involved by putting him in a headlock.

"I was put into a headlock and everything changed. It went from a one on one fight to a two on one fight … as soon as I knew Mike was getting involved I knew I wasn't going to win that night."

After wriggling out of the headlock, he ran out through the ranchslider, jumped over a fence and into a paddock.

"I was running for my life. As soon as Mike put me in that headlock, in my head, I knew they were coming for me. I knew I was going to get beaten up and I didn't want a piece of that."

He then recalled "a flurry" of kicks and stomps to his head.

"I remember laying there thinking that these are my days, 'I'm gone, I'm done,'. The head kicking was … just off the hook. It was insane the amount of kicks that I received."

The trial, set down for about four days in the Hamilton District Court, continues.