Former bouncer Jonathan Dixon told an Invercargill jury yesterday that by posting footage on the internet of Mike Tindall with another woman he was going to ''save the princess from being tortured''.
Dixon took the footage of the woman with Tindall, who was then newly married to the Queen's granddaughter Zara Phillips, from CCTV cameras at the Base/Altitude Bar in September 2011, after members of the England rugby team, then captained by Tindall, visited the bar where Dixon worked security.
Dixon told the jury he posted the footage on YouTube to stop Base bosses, including general manager Blair Impey, using it in a slow campaign to keep the story, and their bar, in the headlines for a longer period.
He yesterday took the stand and, in questioning over several hours from defence counsel John Westgate, told the jury his elaborate plan to make money for the bar - he never intended to sell it for himself - after discovering Tindall might have been caught on the bar's CCTV apparently behaving inappropriately.
Dixon has denied accessing a computer and obtaining, without right the CCTV footage of Tindall. He is being tried in the Invercargill District Court.
He said he was not working the night Tindall was in the bar, but was asked the next day by a fellow security guard to locate footage of Tindall after an incident at the front door of the bar.
He said once he had asked a receptionist to look the footage out, which was usual practice following an incident, he began hearing from other people that Tindall could have been acting up the night before.
He said he realised he could not sell the footage because it was not his property, so, in anticipation, decided to start a project for Base to work out how the company could make money from the footage.
He started what he called ''Project Lucy'', which he would complete and then present to Base managers. He said he had done mainly internet analysis projects for Base up to 70 times over his six years working security there. Base had paid him at least one of those times.
Project Lucy was to find out the price of footage, find a media outlet which would offer that money, and locate a point of contact at that media outlet.
''I'd wrap it up and, same as usual, I'd go to Blair [Impey], and we would go through the project and he would go to Base senior management.
''I wasn't going to sell the footage. You can't sell the footage.''
But he could not find out a price, so he met representatives of The Sun newspaper, who said they needed to see evidence before they could name a price.
He gave them two still shots from the footage, which were subsequently published, without his authorisation, in The Sun.
He was angry with them, and they apologised and suggested he send the footage to a media distribution company they said could be trusted.
''Now I had to make sure I could get a price and go to Blair with at least something.''
He said he knew he had ''stuffed up'' by giving The Sun the stills and fearing he would lose his job, now had to make sure he could get a price so he had ''at least something'' to go to Mr Impey with.
He went to Base and offered to ''take the rap'' for the leak of the photos and suggested he could sell the footage to the media company, get the money and give it all to Base.
However, Mr Impey ultimately told him he did not need Dixon and Base would use the footage itself and run a slow campaign using bits of the footage to keep the bar in the headlines over a longer period of time, Dixon said.
But he could not agree to what he considered to be a smear campaign.
''I said you are torturing the princess, mate, and that's not going to happen. I'm not going to let you do that. You have 53 minutes before I release [the footage].''
When Mr Impey did not agree to deal with the media agency, Dixon uploaded the footage to YouTube.
He denied the suggestion in cross-examination from Crown solicitor Mary-Jane Thomas, that ''this saga'' was purely about him wanting to make as much money as he could from the footage.
''It was definitely not about making money for myself,'' he said, although he conceded he had hoped maybe Base would give him a cut of any profits from selling the story, but was not expecting it, given that he had been ''ripped off'' by Base before on projects, but he carried on.
When asked why he thought putting the footage on YouTube for the entire world to see was not itself ''torturing the princess'', Dixon said he thought if he could tell Tindall off, as he did in self-shot segments of the piece he posted, he could move the focus from ''the princess'' to himself.
''I hyped it up towards me. The media did a fine job by crucifying me.''
He denied Ms Thomas' suggestion that posting the piece was actually done in ''a fit of pique'' because the media agency needed Base's authorisation to use the footage, but it would not give it, and he became determined that if he was not going to get money out of it, no-one was.
''The suggestion you somehow have the higher moral ground in this is just fictional and it's just your attempt to look better in the eyes of the media,'' she put to him.
Dixon said his understanding was that there were no restrictions or policies around using, uploading or taking home CCTV footage from the Altitude Bar.
He agreed he had drafted a contract between the security company he worked for and Base which had a confidentiality clause in it, but that was never completed.
He said he agreed with an earlier witness, former Base security contractor Phil Matia, who said that there was no issue with security guards or staff at Base taking home salacious CCTV footage, because the culture of the bar, and of Queenstown in general, was that it was a fun place to be and that was a fun thing to do.
The trial continues today with closing arguments.
