Murder accused shocked by police tactics

A man accused of murdering his teenage wife was in tears as police allegedly tried to force him to confess in an interview 20 years ago, a Sydney court has heard.

Steve Frank Fesus, 46, has pleaded not guilty to murdering 18-year-old Jodie Fesus in August 1997 at their Shellharbour home on the NSW south coast before burying her in a shallow grave at Seven Mile Beach, near Gerroa.

In a police interview recorded in 2000 and played to the NSW Supreme Court on Tuesday, Fesus alleged that when previously questioned, the detectives involved turned the tape off and said to him, 'Why don't you just come out with it?"

They'd then said his friends would understand it was an accident, Fesus claimed.

"It just like upset me big time," he went on.

"It was just a shock. I didn't think you guys did that kind of thing."

During the 2000 interview, Fesus talked candidly about his personality, sometimes laughing.

He said people felt intimidated by his "big" size until they get to know him.

As a security supervisor, Fesus said he liked to resolve situations "without getting too heavy-handed".

"I find talking to someone is much easier than being abusive toward them."

Fesus said he didn't need a gun licence because "I've got the best weapon now - talking".

When asked how he responded to his wife when she verbally abused him, he said he was brought up to never raise a hand to a female.

Yet he described play-wrestling with a former girlfriend.

"We'd muck around wrestling and, you know, we'd be chucking each other around," he told the interviewing detectives.

"That's just games that we'd play."

The trial before Justice Peter Johnson continues.