John Banks: 'If you don't give up in your heart you've never lost'

John Banks. Photo / Richard Robinson

The fight to clear his name had been gruelling, but he was never prepared to give up, Mr Banks said at a press conference this afternoon.

"It's been tough. Day in and day out, it's been tough. It's been tough for my wife Amanda. It's been tough for my kids. It's been tough on my friends. But if you don't give up in your heart you've never lost."

The day he was convicted in the High Court had been a life low-point, he said, but he vowed to fight on and was glad to have been vindicated.

"For me it was humiliating. But as my boxing coach used to say, 'Banksy, never let them know you're hurt.' So we just had to take it. You take the lumps."

He said the Crown case was built on fabricated evidence from unreliable witnesses.

He suggested that since his conviction had been overturned, it would be best if the Crown decided not to reinitiate the court process. His two American witnesses' were "unimpeachable", he said.

"It's cost me my career, my position in Cabinet, my place in parliament ... All of those things to me were priceless. I'm an innocent man today; whereas yesterday I was a convicted felon.

"For all of my faults, and I have more than most, I don't do bad stuff. I told you on day one I would never knowingly sign a false anything. I've said that to anyone who would listen, since day one.

"I'd be very disappointed if the Crown sought to pursue this any further."

Mr Banks said his wife Amanda was a "hero" for her part in clearing his name.

"Amanda was humiliated in the High Court. Instead of leaving with her tail between her legs ... she set out to find the witnesses who would dismantle the evidence of the Crown case.

"She spent a lot of time on that and she found those witnesses and we tracked them down to the United States and they stepped up to the plate and swore those affidavits.

"She's been a hero in all of this, and she put up with a lot."

Mr Banks declined to comment on statements Dotcom made on Twitter about the meeting with the Americans being a different meeting to that where donations were discussed.

"I'm not going to get into the pros and cons of what Dotcom has tweeted. My problems are over; his problems are just beginning.

"Isn't it richly ironic that the Crown's principle witness against me is fighting for his own freedom because the Crown want to take him away to Mt Eden prison today," he said.