The NSW District Court has been told that a YouTube personality was contacted by one of the complainants in the Gareth Ward trial in order to paint the Kiama MP in “not a very nice light”.

Ward is facing five charges and has pleaded not guilty to each of them: sexual intercourse without consent, common assault and three counts of indecent assault.

He has been accused of indecently assaulting a recently turned 18-year-old at the politician’s Meroo Meadow home in 2013.

The 44-year-old Independent MP was charged three years ago following complaints against him from a man, aged 24 at the time, over an alleged incident at Potts Point in Sydney’s east a decade ago and an allegation from an incident alleged to have occurred two years earlier at his Shoalhaven property.

Under cross examination on Thursday at the Darlinghurst Courthouse from Ward’s barrister, David Campbell SC, the younger complainant said he had contacted Jordan Shanks-Markovina, a YouTuber known as “friendlyjordies”.

The man said he ended up meeting the Sydney-based YouTuber and his producer/researcher, Kristo Langker, face to face after his initial email.

He also told the jury that he had contacted an ABC journalist “to see if they could assist” in bringing his allegations against Ward into the public arena.

When Campbell put it to the complainant that he was trying to portray Ward in “not a very nice light”, he responded by saying “it’s just that the truth was not very positive” for him.

The complainant had earlier in the trial said Ward encouraged him to drink alcohol at his house in 2013.

He had recently turned 18 and Crown Prosecutor Monika Knowles has told the Court that police allege Ward indecently assaulted the teenager as he lay on the grass and then again inside in his bedroom.

The man, who said he was 17 when he first met Ward, told the jury “I could not move” when he alleged that Ward placed himself on top of him while he was face down in bed and tried to perform a lower back massage.

He continued to associate with Ward after the alleged incident but told the Court that when he heard that the then Liberal politician had been promoted to NSW Minister of Families, he told the jury he was very distressed and described the appointment as inappropriate.

“I felt basically that a vampire was running the blood bank and that I had a responsibility that I needed to get it on the record,” he told the Court while explaining why he decided to report his allegations to police.

The trial, which has run for five weeks before Judge Shead, continues.

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