Mr Mesiti was charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm and common assault. Police have sought an apprehended violence order on behalf of his second wife, Andrea. Mr Mesiti has not yet been required to enter a plea to the assault charge and it is not known if he will oppose the AVO application.

Fifteen years ago, Mr Mesiti was one of Australia's most prominent evangelists. He had his own television show and had risen to become a national director of the Pentecostal church movement Australian Christian Churches.

But in 2001 the church leadership at Hillsong discovered he had been sleeping with prostitutes. He was stripped of his licence to minister. His first marriage fell apart.

"I was basically struggling with a sexual addiction," he told the Christian magazine Sight in 2006. Two years later he told the New Zealand Herald he had "lost everything" following the revelations.

"I was so depressed that I couldn't talk for two years. I struggled with my mental health."