A spiritual medium accused of indecently assaulting a 17-year-old during a ritual cleansing was trying to remove "an attachment" from the male, a court has heard.
Hastings man Craig Wright, 35, is standing trial in the Napier District Court this week after pleading not guilty to two charges of indecent assault.
He is alleged to have touched the complainant's penis, and then made the teenager touch Wright's penis, during a spiritual cleansing at a Napier address on May 6 last year.
Wright was at the address with associates from a paranormal group after residents in the house contacted them about spiritual activity at the property.
In a DVD interview played to the jury this morning Wright said he performed a cleansing for around an hour and a half on a male at the address after realising he had "an attachment".
He told a detective he poured white salt across the door, closed it and lit white tea candles while the complainant laid still on his back.
"When you remove an entity or parasite you've got to close off a room because you can't have anyone else because their energy can jump from one person to another person which makes my job a lot harder."
The court heard in order to remove an attachment the medium had to go through the "silver chord", otherwise known as a belly button.
During the interview Wright asked if he could hold the detective's hand to demonstrate the ritual and then proceeded to wave his hand over a table in the room to mimic the procedure.
He said after an hour and a half the pair returned to others in a common room in the house and hugged them before leaving the property.
When the detective asked him to explain why the complainant said Wright told him to lay on his side and then took his pants and underwear off, he said "I have no idea because it didn't happen."
The detective then put to him that the male said Wright's penis was erect, and that he put his ear to the 17-year-old's penis during the ritual, which Wright also denied.
"That's disgusting. Why would I have an erect penis?" he said.
The court heard others at the house recalled the cleansing had gone on for four hours, not an hour and a half.
The Crown, defence and Judge Bridget Mackintosh are due to deliver their closing addresses today.