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“Even today I just don't have enough detailed knowledge of the investigation or what evidence has been looked for to make that determination. The impression I had going in was that there was potentially evidence on anything that had digital storage capability.”

Again, there was the issue of secrecy. Langille knew there were other sites to be searched around the world. “We were also instructed that we were not to go on to . . . their website [Megaupload]. They didn't want there to be a trail of police to their website and also the whole operation was shrouded in secrecy to the point that I was only to tell the staff in my office that were directly involved with the searches.”

SITTING IN THE back of the courtroom, Dotcom watched raid boss Grant Wormald approach the witness dock. The police inspector coughed and spluttered his way through his testimony, explaining he'd been laid up for weeks with a bad cold.

“I sense a lot of things on the fly,” he says. “I am a brilliant poker player. I'm really good at reading people. I could see the guy was nervous. I could see he was bluffing.”

It was Wormald who was pushed to reveal the presence of “other” people at the planning meeting. “When I noticed that, I actually insisted on some of the questions our legal team was putting to him,” says Dotcom. “They wouldn't have asked them otherwise, especially the surveillance question.”

Initially, the lawyers were reluctant, he says, concerned that the court might lose patience if they started following a path which would appeal to a conspiracy theorist but not to any sane, experienced legal counsel. Dotcom watched a pale and wan Wormald, coughing and sipping at water to clear his throat and came to the conclusion his appearance and behaviour disguised a deeper truth.

“I have observed this guy,” Dotcom told his lawyers. “He has something to hide. He is very nervous. There's something there. We have to drill into him.”

On the stand, Wormald had months of planning deconstructed over hours. He told the court preparations for the raid began in earnest on 9 January, the original date on the form soliciting the STG's assistance. From an early stage, he told Davison, there were plans to get the elite unit onto the mansion grounds in a helicopter.

The police also considered contacting Regan Stewart. “I'd love to have had a talk to him. I dare say he could have given us a lot of information and we certainly turned our mind to that possibility but it

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