Former Wagga MP Daryl Maguire's son James has told a corruption inquiry he did not recall the details of a phone call in which he allegedly encouraged electorate staff to finish shredding documents while the family's home was being raided.
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The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) on Wednesday was told that officers executed a search warrant on Daryl Maguire's Wagga home in September 2018.
The ex-MP's former media officer Sarah Vasey told the hearing that she did not know about the raid at the time and was attending the Wagga electorate office when she got a phone call from James Maguire.
Ms Vasey also told ICAC that Daryl asked her to hang on to a USB memory stick containing data from his phones and tablet computer, and that she understood the USB stick was later destroyed when she returned it to him.
Ms Vasey said James's words on the phone call were "along the lines of if there was anything still in the office, to do something with it".
Ms Vasey said she was "panicked and teary" when she realised police or ICAC could search her for the USB stick.
"I didn't know what to do. I didn't know who to talk to," a visibly emotional Ms Vasey told ICAC. "At that moment, I feared for myself."
ICAC is investigating allegations that Daryl used his public office for personal gain between 2012 and 2018.
Ms Vasey agreed with counsel assisting ICAC Scott Robertson that James was implying that anything in the office should be "destroyed or removed" in case it could have implicated Daryl, who at that point had resigned from Parliament.
Ms Vasey later agreed with a solicitor for James that she did not receive an explicit request to destroy documents but James had been "very careful with his words".
She later agreed with Mr Robertson that James gave her the "impression that we should finish doing whatever we were doing" which was "shredding everything in the office".
James himself gave evidence after Ms Vasey at ICAC on Wednesday and denied that he had ever assisted Daryl in destroying or disposing of physical or electronic records after his father resigned from Parliament.
ICAC was then played an intercepted phone call between James and Daryl from August 27 in 2018, more than three weeks after the former Wagga MP left Parliament.
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James said in the call he "just tried getting rid of the emails" and spent several minutes walking Daryl through the steps to remove email accounts from an iPad tablet.
James admitted to ICAC that he called Ms Vasey as a "heads-up" that there might be "unexpected visitors" after Daryl told him that an officer had arrived at their home.
Mr Robertson asked if he gave an instruction or understanding that Ms Vasey should destroy documents.
"I don't recall," James said.