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7.10AM

Dotcom is taken downstairs to the living area. There, officers sit him on a lounge chair. He complains of feeling unwell, says he has diabetes and needs to up his sugar levels. An officer fetches a Fanta. Dotcom is shown an arrest warrant and a search warrant. A racketeering — organised crime — charge is among the many. “I didn’t even know what racketeering was.” What is racketeering, Dotcom asks the officer.

Then: “How is my wife? Can I see my kids?”

It is the same question Mona, pregnant and anxious in her nightclothes, is asking outside on the dawn-damp grass. “I asked several times to go inside to see the children but was not allowed,” she said later. “After about an hour I was allowed inside and the children were brought to me about 20 or 30 minutes later.”

Dotcom recalls that moment — and the feeling of “helplessness”. “She was separated from the kids and she’s seven months pregnant and they wouldn’t let me go to her.” For the years since meeting Mona, Dotcom had been the one in control. As the children arrived, one after another, he took charge of their happiness. For a man who had such little positive contact with his father, his role was precious and weighed on him heavily.

“They wouldn’t let me calm her down . . . she was in shock. They wouldn’t allow her to see the kids. I felt really terrible — not being able to comfort her or just say, ‘Hey don’t worry, I think this is a big mistake.’ And there was nothing I could do about it.”

The excitement of the raid was pervasive, he says. Every officer was jacked up on the chance to raid the biggest house and the baddest criminal on a raid run by the FBI. “No one cared about this family. No one cared about my wife or myself. They were just excited about this job and it was like being in an action movie. You could really see people enjoying this. To me, that was disgusting. I just really felt disgusted by that.

“You could feel a sense of excitement with the people who came here to raid us. They were running around the house actually smiling. They were looking around like this is a museum and this is some kind of tour. They were looking at my slideshow and my pictures.

“You can imagine — I’m in this amazingly stressful situation and they are asking me questions like: ‘How fast does this car go?’ I felt totally invaded. And for a moment there, I was really thinking this is how it must have been when the Gestapo came in and took over your life and threw you out of your house and they arrested you.

“There was no humanity there.”

Dotcom asks to call his lawyer and for his phone to make the call. The request is refused — the phone is now evidence, he is told. He asks if they can search the contacts listing in the phone to extract the

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