CORRUPT former government lawyer Warwick Reid yesterday told the High Court he had taken his friend Kevin Egan's Australian passport, a pen gun and ammunition from Egan's house without his approval.
Cross-examined by Egan's lawyer, Mr John McNamara, Reid said Egan was unconscious after drinking heavily when he left.
Egan, former deputy principal Crown counsel, is on trial before Deputy Judge Jones and an all-male jury after denying he transferred his passport to Reid shortly before Reid fled Hongkong and possessing a firearm without a licence.
Reid, who is serving an eight-year jail sentence for corruption, agreed that when he offered them back to Egan the following day, because he felt guilty about the way he had obtained them, he did so in such guarded terms that it could have meant any number of things.
Reid also said that prior to his arrest, he had gone on drinking binges once a week when he got hopelessly drunk.
He agreed he had had alcoholic amnesia at times.