Matt Wright’s employee and friend Timothy Johnston has denied telling “blatant lies” under oath to the jury in the crocodile wrangler’s criminal trial.

When Crown prosecutor Jason Gullaci SC resumed his questioning after lunch, he asked: “You understand what perjury is, don’t you, Mr Johnston?”

“Yes,” Mr Johnston replied.

Mr Gullaci reminded Mr Johnston that a certificate he’d received immunising him from his evidence being used against him “doesn’t extend to telling lies in this court”.

“Are you still prepared to tell lies for Matt Wright in that scenario?” he asked.

“I have never been prepared to tell lies for Matt Wright,” Mr Johnston replied.

Mr Johnston agreed he was still “reasonably” close friends with Mr Wright, but initially said he “can’t confirm or deny” whether Mr Wright had helped pay for renovations to his house.

“I can’t recall any time Mr Wright has helped me financially renovate my house,” he said after further questioning.

“I’m putting to you directly that what you want to do, and out of loyalty and out of friendship I can understand it, you want to protect Mr Wright at all costs?” Mr Gullaci asked.

“Disagree,” Mr Johnston replied.

“And you are prepared to tell blatant lies if in your mind it protects Mr Wright?”

“No.”

Mr Gullaci said Mr Johnston had exercised his right not to make a statement to authorities and had been compelled to testify in a pre-trial hearing.

He said there were “critical differences” between the account he gave just before the trial started and his evidence today.

“That’s because you became tangled in your own lies?” Mr Gullaci asked.

“Disagree,” Mr Johnston said.

Mr Gullaci suggested Mr Johnston had previously said he “asked for his diary, his phone and MR [maintenance release form]”, which the prosecutor said was “polar opposites” with what he said today.

“It’s exactly the same thing,” Mr Johnston said.

“I sat next to [Mr Robinson’s brother Jacob] Robinson, there was a number of items there, I asked for those items and that’s what I’m saying to you happened.”

“You’re seriously asking this jury to accept that that’s the same thing, that’s ridiculous isn’t it?” Mr Gullaci asked.

“No, it’s not,” Mr Johnston replied.

Mr Gullaci suggested Mr Johnston was “willing to toe the Matt Wright party line” even “at the risk of exposing yourself to perjury”.

“That’s how loyal you are,” he suggested.

“No, incorrect,” Mr Johnston replied.

Mr Gullaci suggested Mr Johnston’s version of events was “nonsense”.

“It doesn’t make any sense that you would go to a hospital with someone so badly injured as Mr Robinson and just ask to pick up stuff and have no idea what it was?” Mr Gullaci said.

“It sounds like nonsense, yes,” Mr Johnston said.

“”But that’s your evidence, isn’t it?”

“I’m just telling you what my account is.”

Mr Johnston said he was “trying to help out” and “it was presented in front of me, I said, ‘Do I take that?’.”

“He might need his phone, mightn’t he?” Mr Gullaci said.

“Yeah, absolutely.”

“And having it in another state’s not very helpful?”

“No, not at all.”

Mr Gullaci also suggested there was no record of a phone call between Mr Johnston and Mr Wright or his wife Kaia Wright on that day, but Mr Johnston said that did not change his evidence.

“There will be a record, it happened,” he said.