Jamie Bryson trial latest: Loyalist activist denies breaking the law in Daithi McKay NAMA case

As well as denying any wrong-doing, at one point during his cross-examination Mr Bryson asked a Crown barrister to set out exactly what crime he is alleged to have committed.

Mr Bryson spent a second day giving evidence in the witness box at Belfast Crown Court where he also denied suggestions that he leaked information which formed the basis of an article in the Irish News.

From Rosepark in Donaghadee, Mr Bryson has been charged alongside Thomas Gerard O'Hara, 40, from Lisnahunshin Road in Cullybackey with conspiring together and with Daithi McKay to commit an offence of misconduct in a public office on dates between September 1 and 24, 2015.

Mr McKay, who is 43 and from Loughan Road in Dunnamanagh, has been charged with misconduct in a public office on September 23, 2015.

All three men have denied the charges against them which arise from evidence presented by Mr Bryson to the Assembly's Finance and Personnel Committee in September 2015.

At the time, the committee was investigating how Northern Ireland property loans were handled by the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA).

Sinn Fein's Daithi McKay chaired the committee and it's the Crown's case that due to messages exchanged between Mr Bryson and the two Sinn Fein members Mr McKay and Mr O'Hara prior to the meeting, there was manipulation of how this evidence was presented.

It's also the Crown's case that the rules of this committee were subverted to cause political embarrassment to Peter Robinson who, in September 2015, occupied the position of first minister.

Whilst giving his evidence at the committee, Mr Bryson named Mr Robinson as one of five people who he claimed would benefit financially from the NAMA deal.

In the aftermath of Mr Bryson's allegations, Mr Robinson issued a statement and branded the allegations made against him as "scurrilous and unfounded" and without "one iota of evidence."

The trial is now in its third week and today Mr Bryson was called to the witness box for a second time.

Under cross-examination by Crown barrister Toby Hedworth KC, Mr Bryson was asked about a series of Twitter messages exchanged between him and Mr McKay and between him and the Twitter account of Mr O'Hara, who Mr Bryson believed was a Sinn Fein policy worker.

In August 2016, these Twitter messages formed the basis of a story published in the Irish News under the headline 'Sinn Fein 'coached' Jamie Bryson before NAMA hearing.'

Mr Bryson accepted sending and receiving the messages via Twitter but denied supplying them to the Irish News.

Instead, he said that prior to the story running he was contacted by a journalist via email who provided him with screenshots of the messages.

When asked by Mr Hedworth "so if it wasn't you throwing Mr McKay under the bus, it must have been Mr McKay throwing himself under the bus then?", Mr Bryson replied: "Well I don't accept that anybody has been thrown under the bus and Mr McKay hasn't done anything improper."

At hearing.