Not your average Tupperware party.

Guests at the party told the court that alcohol flowed freely as the women chatted, laughed and put in their orders for Tupperware.

But the mood had changed when a Mr Neville came to the house on nightfall, drunk and boasting of a lesbian encounter at local surf club where he had spent the day.

One of the Tupperware party guests, Sherie Luke, said the women's mood had been "pretty merry" but Mr Neville arrived agitated and became "fighting mad".

Mrs Luke said Mr Neville, the partner of Mrs Sutherland's sister, was "babbling crap" about some lesbians he had met at the surf club. "We definitely knew he'd been drinking," she said.