On June 24 last year, as Sydney basked in its warmest weather of the month, lobbyist Jeremy Greenwood spent the morning being grilled during a secret preliminary examination at the Independent Commission Against Corruption.

At the end of the interrogation, senior ICAC officials explicitly told Greenwood not to discuss his attendance or the contents of the examination with anyone other than his three-person legal team. It was the last thing said to Greenwood before the 37-year-old former political staffer walked out the door. Breaching the direction can result in 12 months in jail.

But that same afternoon, Greenwood travelled four kilometres east to the Royal Oak Hotel in Double Bay, stepped inside and sat down with his close friend Jean-Claude Perrottet, who along with Greenwood is featuring prominently in ICAC’s latest blockbuster inquiry, Operation Rosny. It would be the first of many such questionable meetings or phone calls between Greenwood and those panicked by being caught up in the probe.

CCTV from the Double Bay encounter shows the pair placing their phones two metres from their table, in an apparent attempt to make sure any law enforcement agencies listening could not hear the conversation that followed.

Greenwood insisted during an explosive ICAC hearing on Wednesday this was all very normal behaviour. “It’s not a rare thing,” he offered.

An incredulous counsel assisting the commission, Dr Peggy Dwyer, SC, asked: “So do you say that when you go to any pub with your friends, you deliberately put your phones at another table, a few tables away?”

He replied: “It’s not uncommon for me to do that at all. I remember Barack Obama once said he never brings a phone into a meeting.”

Perhaps a factor for keeping his phone – and potential ears – at arm’s length over recent times was the open secret in political circles that the ICAC has been investigating Greenwood and a conservative Christian sub-faction of the Liberal Party known as the Reformers since mid-2022.

The little-known cousin to ICAC’s public hearings, compulsory examinations are convened as the commission builds a case. The law says they are meant to be kept secret to make sure witnesses don’t collude to corrupt the process.

Asked whether he breached the direction to keep his examination by the ICAC secret, Greenwood said he “hoped I haven’t”.

But is it possible he had? “I don’t know. I don’t know. I’ve said it about 15 times. I don’t know.”

Witnesses who are ordered to appear before ICAC investigators are routinely given a direction not to discuss the evidence or the fact they’ve been summonsed. Greenwood said on Wednesday he knew this, but could not recall whether he had ever shared details of any evidence.

“Mr Greenwood, you’ve described the proceedings as stressful, and they obviously are,” Dwyer said, sympathetically. Then came the kicker: “Is it the case that you cracked under that stress, and you did discuss the evidence that you were going to give?” He again said he could not recall.

The Royal Oak meeting was not the only time Greenwood has met friends and allies who are also feeling the heat; the ICAC has heard evidence of multiple phone calls and gatherings over recent months.

During a trip to London in June, Greenwood met four times with his former business partner and key ICAC target, Christian Ellis. “We were at a pub every single time we caught up, from about midday to 9pm on my days off from a conference,” he explained. The two have continued to speak via phone as recently as this week.

Earlier this year, Greenwood picked up his friend Rob Assaf and drove to a cafe in Belfield. Assaf – a key member of the Reformers sub-faction being probed over illegal donations – was in a state of agitation about the ICAC investigation.

Assaf pulled out his laptop with a summons on the screen, and left it with Greenwood seated at the cafe to inspect. The pair then put their phones in Greenwood’s car and went for a walk.

Assaf claims Greenwood asked him what he would say if a certain question came up at the commission, and recalled Greenwood being concerned about a fellow Reformer and friend, Jean-Claude Perrottet, given he had taken money from a banned political donor, hotelier Michael O’Hara.

On June 5 this year, Greenwood and Assaf met again, this time for a walk along the Cooks River track. Both men left their phones and laptop behind before setting off.

What happened next depends on who is telling the story.

According to Assaf’s version of events, Greenwood told him he had recently met with other ICAC targets Jean-Claude Perrottet and Dallas McInerney. He also apparently repeated his concerns that the younger Perrottet brother could be in trouble given his obvious links to O’Hara.

“It definitely made me uncomfortable that he was meeting with that many people potentially involved,” Assaf told the ICAC.

As for Greenwood’s version of that meeting? In summary: “I can’t recall.”

Greenwood will return to the witness box in coming weeks to face allegations he and two other Liberal Party operatives were to receive a $2 million bribe from fugitive Sydney property developer Jean Nassif.

Further reading

Here are some of the highlights of our ICAC coverage.