A man accused of grievous bodily harm attempted to portray his alleged victim as a drug addict.

Lloyd Hilton Smith is representing himself in his Supreme Court trial after dismissing his lawyer.

Yesterday he slowly cross-examined witnesses to try to prove that his alleged victim and ex-lover, Nicole Lambert, and her roommate were drug users.

He also tried to prove that Police poorly investigated the incident.

Smith, 53, of no fixed abode has pleaded not guilty to unlawfully causing grievous bodily harm with intent to deprive his victim of her freedom and being in possession of an offensive weapon, that is a pipe, on March 1 last year in Turtle Bay Crescent, Southampton.

Smith questioned Detective Constable Dave Bird, who, along with Detective Constable Terry Pringle, was involved in investigating the incident.

He asked him whether he could determine whether Ms Lambert and her roommate Gina DeCosta were drug users when he visited her Middle Road home.

"In your experience with persons who use drugs would you say that it was a house used for drugs?" Smith asked after Assistant Justice Archibald Warner told him to ask a direct question instead of waffling through his cross-examination.

Det. Con. Bird said: "In my experience, you can't say by looking at a house whether someone is a drug user. Nothing in that house suggested to me that drugs were being used."

Smith continued to ask Det. Con. Bird if by looking at Ms DeCosta he could tell she had smoked cocaine. But Mr. Warner stopped the detective from answering the question. Mr. Warner said: "What does Gina have to do with it?"

Ms DeCosta had found her roommate after she heard her calling from the steps that were outside her room the night of the alleged attack.

During his cross examination, Smith attempted to highlight parts of his statement taken by Det. Con. Pringle while Det. Con. Bird was present.

On several occasions Smith told the court that he hadn't been given enough time to "peruse" his statement but Mr. Warner said that it was the statement that the Police recorded from him on March 3.

In the statement Smith was asked if he saw Ms Lambert at all during the early morning hours of March 1 but he said he was not good with time but had picked her up in his taxi.

According to Smith he was attempting to take her to the hospital but Ms Lambert told him not to go there because they would ask too many questions.

He said he was then going to take her to her mother's house but he claimed Ms Lambert said she couldn't go to her mother's house looking the way she did. She instead told him to take her to her Middle Road, Southampton residence.

When he arrived, he said a pit bull at her house frightened him and Ms Lambert instructed him to leave her at the stairs. He said she was "pretty beat up" when he left her at her home.

In his statement he was asked whether Ms Lambert had told him what had happened to her. Smith said: "To me I learned that if a person wants to tell you something ... if she was that much of a friend she would have told me."

Crown counsel Anthony Blackman questioned Det. Con. Bird concerning any dogs at the Middle Road, Southampton property. Det. Con. Bird said: "Caged dogs were away from the path on the side of the house.

"The closest dog caged would have been 35 feet (from Ms DeCosta's side of the house)."

He said there were several pit bulls and one Rottweiler in the cages

"The Rottweiler was tied furthest away from the road," he later told Smith during cross examination.

Earlier, P.c. Timothy Harvey told the court he had not seen a Rottweiler anywhere in the area of Ms Lambert's home the morning of March 1 the defendant questioned him.

Smith had also earlier questioned Det. Con. Pringle on the evidence in the case.

He asked: "Did you find anything of the accused in the area that he was present and that he was involved in a struggle."

None of the items seized from the Turtle Bay Crescent area had been identified as Smith's, Det. Con. Pringle said. But Ms Lambert later identified a gold hoop earring, eyeglass frames and a brown knife found at the site.

Det. Con. Bird said he did seize a tub of Vaseline from Smith's taxi. In his statement Smith claimed Ms Lambert had asked him to buy the Vaseline when they stopped at a gas station before he returned her home.

Smith asked Det. Con. Pringle if she had taken notice of the names on the signs at the site of the alleged attack.

Mr. Warner told him the names were not relevant.

Smith said: "I feel the names are relevant because of the sloppiness of this investigation."

The case continues on Monday before a seven woman, five man jury.