Kiama Independent MP Gareth Ward’s barrister, David Campbell SC, has told the NSW District Court that police have conducted a flawed investigation into allegations levelled against the politician.

Campbell completed his closing address on Monday at the start of the ninth week of the trial before Judge Kara Shead.

Ward, 44, is facing five charges and has pleaded not guilty to each of them: sexual intercourse without consent, common assault and three counts of indecent assault.

He was charged after complaints against Ward from a man, aged 24 at the time, over an alleged incident at Potts Point in Sydney’s east a decade ago.

Ward has also been accused of indecently assaulting a recently turned 18-year-old at the politician’s Meroo Meadow home in 2013.

Crown Prosecutor Monika Knowles had earlier told the Darlinghurst Courthouse in her closing address that the similarities between the alleged incidents involving Ward were not a coincidence.

She told the jury that the two complainants had given “remarkably similar accounts of being assaulted.

Campbell accused the police officers who investigated the alleged incidents of holding a bias against Ward.

He suggested that the team headed up by former Detective Senior Constable Cameron Bignell had “selectively and potentially dishonestly cherry-picked” what they had wanted to investigate.

Campbell described Bignell as a “miscreant” and again questioned why the detective had not interviewed Ward’s housemate, who was at the apartment on the night in question a decade ago.

He also told the jury that the accounts of the two complainants were unreliable, claiming that the alleged incident at Potts Point did not happen at all and that there was “pervading, inherent unreliability” in the political staffer’s testimony against Ward.

Campbell suggested that the younger complainant from the Meroo Meadow incident had changed his version of events over time to reflect poorly on Ward.

In summing up, he told the jury that the Crown Prosecutor had failed to establish a burden of proof and that Ward should be found not guilty of all charges.

Judge Shead is expected to complete her directions to the jury on Tuesday so that they can then consider their verdict.

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