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"And when you really looked at it from the outside, you saw all this was like a huge kindergarten. People would clash and then little factions would form where a group of people organise against another group and then they would fight each other. It was like a mini-war game that you would be constantly watching."

The mansion was all the couple wanted for a home but the atmosphere began to drag on the family. Dotcom says it never felt "harmonious", and Mona says it was not somewhere people were "happy to work", adding: "It felt more like a resort."

Dotcom says the feeling of being perceived as an oddity in the wider community was also prevalent at home. "Even staff here, people we employed, you would always feel and see that they look at you differently. They look at you as some alien life form."

The new country also carried fewer of the ostentatious entertainments Dotcom had become accustomed to in other countries — distractions which wealthy visitors would seek out. While Auckland had gone through a dramatic upheaval in its bid to catch big money tourists, it was still a developing Pacific city of just over one million people. The number of businesses set up to cater for the super-rich was limited. Some of those would say to Dotcom "it is not as though New Zealand is the most appealing place".

"If you are used to money and you are used to a good lifestyle, New Zealand doesn't really have much to offer in terms of lifestyle, accommodation, or the top restaurants. If you go into the centre of Auckland, there are exactly two top fashion brand stores, which is Louis Vuitton and Prada, and that is it. That is all you have in the whole country. There is not one good nightclub here where you go out and have a nice disco night. It is all kind of mediocre. Even the top restaurants here — if you go to a top restaurant here and you compare that to a normal restaurant in Hong Kong . . . We are used to that stuff, we are spoilt. Hong Kong has the best lifestyle in the world when it comes to night entertainment and partying and restaurants and shopping and all that stuff.

"So when we come here, you can go on a helicopter trip and you can ride jetski, you can go fishing, you can do all the things that New Zealand is great for, but if you are used to a certain lifestyle and you expect certain quality things. (Those) quality things is what New Zealand is lacking. It is really hard to find things that are sophisticated and of a quality. When it comes to lifestyle, the kind of lifestyle that rich people are used to — you just don't have that here."

While staying at the mansion, Dotcom was visited in New Zealand by wealthy businessmen friends. "They go out here and they tell me, 'We're going out tonight — are you coming?' And I just have a grin on my face: 'Nah, you guys go'. And they come back with like; 'What is this place?

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