Salim Mehajer at Burwood Local Court on Thursday. Credit:AAP He had been arrested at 1am that morning over alleged breaches of an AVO protecting his estranged wife and an incident of alleged dangerous driving following a crash near her home in Kingsgrove. One of the bail conditions imposed by Magistrate Boulos was that he should not contact his estranged wife on social media site Instagram or elsewhere, including via third parties. The prosecution opposed any variation to the bail conditions and grilled Mr Mehajer in the witness box on Thursday about his compliance with existing conditions. He denied he had emailed his estranged wife from an email address that he had also used to correspond with police, saying the email was sent by his sister Aisha and was a "company email address".

"Aisha is my sister and also the company director," he said. "I just became aware of it [the email] minutes ago, or about an hour ago." Asked why he was 1½ hours late reporting to Rose Bay police station on December 1, Mr Mehajer said there was "an issue" with opening the gates at his Vaucluse residence. "You couldn't jump over the fence and get a cab?" the police prosecutor asked. Mr Mehajer said the gate was three metres high.

His lawyer objected when Mr Mehajer was asked whether he was "a prisoner" inside his own home. The court heard police have visited Mr Mehajer at his home virtually every night to ensure he is complying with his 10pm to 5am curfew. Asked why he did not answer the door at 10.25pm on December 2, Mr Mehajer said "of course I was home" and speculated he may have been "in the shower". The court heard he made a series of 000 calls on the evening of November 20, the day the bail conditions were imposed, about a dispute over his car. He denied he admitted in the calls that he was not home by his curfew and said "at all times I have been home before 10pm".

Mr Mehajer had previously told the court he needed changes to his bail conditions so he could attend late-night callouts from residents at Skypoint Towers, the Lidcombe apartment block he developed and manages. He said in his affidavit he was appointed to the building manager role on September 15. Magistrate Boulos said she found it "difficult to understand" why Mr Mehajer would not have a strata manager to oversee the site. She also said Mr Mehajer would have been aware of this information when he applied for bail on November 20 and should have told his lawyers. Mr Mehajer's sister Zenah Osman, a solicitor, had offered to provide $50,000 surety in support of varying the bail conditions.

Loading But Magistrate Boulos said that, "having had regard to the serious allegations that were before me ... no amount of money will satisfy the court and will be sufficient in the circumstances to vary the bail that I set back on the 20th of November". "I see no reason whatsoever to depart from the original bail," she said.