Conservative Party members describe meetings with Jordan Williams

Colin Craig (Getty)
Colin Craig (Getty)

The defamation trial against Colin Craig has heard from former Conservative Party members, who have described holding secret meetings with Jordan Williams.

Mr Williams has taken Mr Craig to court over statements the former Conservative leader made last year.

Former Conservative Party chairman Brian Dobbs says he and Conservative Party donor Laurence Day met with Mr Williams at a motor lodge in Hamilton.

Mr Dobbs says Mr Williams showed him several folders - an inch or two thick - with documents he claimed to be evidence of sexual harassment against Mr Craig's press secretary, Rachel MacGregor.

"Williams told us we could read and take notes from the information, but we could not have copies or take them away," said Mr Dobbs.

He says he was left with the impression Ms MacGregor had given Mr Williams permission to show the documents - but now believes she did not.

"I would have been very concerned if I had known this at the time," he said.

Mr Dobbs, says following the election in 2014, he made Mr Craig swear on a Bible during a Conservative Party meeting that he had not had an affair or ever been unfaithful to his wife, Helen.

Mr Dobbs says he took him at his word.

Mr Dobbs says Mr Craig knew he was meeting with someone to discuss serious allegations against him, but Mr Dobbs says he did not reveal the source of that information at the time.

Ms MacGregor resigned just two days before the 2014 election, and much of the case so far at the High Court in Auckland has focused on her relationship with her former boss.

Later on Wednesday afternoon, investigative journalist Nicky Hager read a statement on the witness stand but was not cross examined. His book, Dirty Politics, featured Mr Williams.

Mr Hager talked about political blogs being used to feed stories into mainstream media, which he says is evidenced in his book. He said in this case Mr Williams used political blog Whale Oil by leaking Mr Craig's poem so this story would then be picked up by mainstream media.

Newshub.