A friend of murdered Melbourne mother Ellie Price paid thousands of dollars in rent up front for her and gave her cash for a luxury car but says he wasn't a sugar daddy.
Ms Price's body was found with fatal stab wounds in her South Melbourne apartment in May last year.
It's alleged she could have been killed by her boyfriend Ricardo Barbaro days earlier.
The 34-year-old is charged with the murder of Ms Price, 26, but he denies the allegation. His lawyers say she was still alive when he left her the last time and claim she was instead killed by someone else.
Ms Price had few friends in Melbourne, but counted businessman and accountant Mark Gray among them.
He told Melbourne Magistrates Court on Wednesday that he paid $25,000 up front in rent for the South Melbourne townhouse where she died.
She would pay him back for the rent, and for a Mercedes for which he fronted her the money.
Mr Gray, who was 31 years her senior, said there as never any sexual element to their relationship.
He is the subject of an alleged extortion plot, in which Ms Price had apparently claimed she would tell police he had raped her unless she continued to give her money.
Their relationship had hit a bump in June 2019 when it became "98 per cent about her", prompting Mr Gray to ask for a "friendship break".
They had no contact at all until January 2020 when police in Cairns called Mr Gray and told him Ms Price had been assaulted and was stranded in Cairns. He paid for her flight home.
He didn't know that she had travelled there with Barbaro, telling the court they never discussed her relationships.
Mr Gray said Ms Price had never considered him her "sugar daddy".
When Barbaro's lawyer Mark Gumbleton suggested Ms Price had been receiving money from other older men to sustain her lifestyle, Mr Gray said he didn't know that.
Mr Gumbleton also questioned Mr Gray on whether he knew if Ms Price was engaged in sex work.
"You weren't her pimp," he asked. "No," Mr Gray confirmed.
He said he never discussed sex work with Ms Price and she had never told him she was involved in that type of work.
But he said he had suspected it.
"I didn't know, but there is a potential that she may have," he said.
"When she would repay me money I lent her I often thought 'where did you get that money/' - it seemed to be a lot of money."
Mr Gray said amounts varied and might include random amounts of $300, $500 or $1000.
He said as a dancer at clubs in Melbourne she was an independent contractor and was paid in cash per dance, rather than a base salary so she always repaid him in cash.
