Convicted murderer Simon Gittany's ex-girlfriend says she felt like she was being called her a "whore" and a "freeloader" when she read a Daily Telegraph article claiming to unmask her life.
"I was humiliated," Rachelle Louise said on Tuesday.
The 25-year-old law student took the stand in the opening day of her trial against the newspaper's publisher, Nationwide News, which she alleges defamed her in a series of articles written following Gittany's guilty verdict in November 2013.
Gittany was sentenced to at least 18 years for murdering his fiancee Lisa Harnum by throwing her from the 15th floor of their inner-Sydney apartment.
Ms Louise, who supported Gittany throughout the trial, said they remained friends and she visited him in prison almost every weekend.
"I think it's very difficult to sustain a relationship with someone while they are in jail," Ms Louise told Sydney's District Court, adding he was appealing the conviction.
"He thinks it is for the best until we know more about the situation."
During his trial, Ms Louise said she had been approached by the Daily Telegraph's then police reporter Clementine Cuneo.
"She said she wasn't a reporter ... She said to me that her boyfriend had been charged with murder and she understood what I was going through," Ms Louise told the four-person jury.
On November 29, 2013, Ms Louise said two of her friends contacted her and said the Daily Telegraph was calling her a prostitute and a stripper and ridiculing her for believing Gittany was innocent.
Claims in the article that she had worked at Spearmint Rhino gentleman's club in Las Vegas and as a masseuse in London were untrue, as was the statement that she tongue-kissed Hollywood actor Woody Harrelson, she said.
She also denied ever accepting diamond necklaces from strangers.
When she read she had apparently "boasted of the perks of travelling the world alone as a woman without a regular source of income", Ms Louise said she was upset.
"She (Ms Cuneo) was calling me a freeloader. She was basically saying I was a whore ... a prostitute."
Her barrister Clive Evatt said his client had been singled out by the news organisation, which had portrayed her as ridiculous and deluded for believing in Gittany's innocence.
But Ms Louise told the court she believed the key crown witness Josh Rathmell - who says he saw Gittany "unload" an object off The Hyde apartment block - was a liar.
"I think he didn't see what he said he saw," she said.
Nationwide News is claiming truth in defence of many of the allegations made against them and also argue other comments are simply expressions of opinions and not stating a fact.
The trial continues.
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