Barrister Lloyd Rayney has been grilled during his multimillion dollar defamation trial about his gambling habits and told a Perth court his wife bullied him before her murder.

Mr Rayney is suing the West Australian government for being named by Detective Senior Sergeant Jack Lee in September 2007 as the prime and only suspect in the murder of Supreme Court registrar Corryn Rayney one month earlier.

Mr Rayney was questioned on Tuesday about an email his wife sent in October 2003 in which she accused him of a "flagrant breach of trust".

She also referred to "darkening the door of the place" and a "continuing habit".

Mr Rayney said his wife was exaggerating and using hyperbole.

He could not recall the email, but thought it was about gambling.

The WA Supreme Court heard he told his wife in 2000 he would cut back on gambling.

Queens Counsel for the state Terence Tobin suggested Mr Rayney lost more than $68,000 between July 1997 and November 2000, but he rejected that claim.

Asked if he was a habitual gambler, Mr Rayney replied: "I bet frequently sometimes, infrequently at others and sometimes not at all."

Mr Rayney testified he never said anything disparaging about his wife to his daughters, but was critical of her in his statement.

"I never dwelled on the bad things that happened, only the good," he said.

Mr Rayney said as their relationship neared its end and he asked why she wanted to separate, she yelled: "To have my freedom!"

He said that was when he knew "this is really going to happen".

The court also heard Ms Rayney was dominant and sometimes bullied her husband.

An example of her "dramatic and threatening" manner was when she told him to pay some tradesmen she referred to as "big rugby blokes", which Mr Rayney took to mean they would harm him if he did not pay - but he never believed it was a real threat.

"She didn't say 'these blokes will beat you up, Lloyd'," he said.

The court heard there were also claims of infidelity between the couple.

Mr Rayney also testified he once thought about becoming a judge.

"It's something I thought I would consider much later in my career," he said.

Mr Rayney said he had been involved in 300 jury trials up to 2007 but only a dozen since.

Mr Tobin took Mr Rayney through his career, including time in Bermuda where he unsuccessfully sought to become the director of public prosecutions.

Mr Rayney said his wife was worried about his income dropping if he left the WA DPP, but when Gina Rinehart offered to give him work that was the "turning point".

It is only the second time Mr Rayney has publicly testified - the other being in 2015 during a failed attempt to end his career.

Ms Rayney's body was found buried head-first at Kings Park in August 2007, about 10 days after she was last seen at a bootscooting class.

Her husband was found not guilty of murdering the mother-of-two in 2012 and a subsequent appeal was also dismissed in 2013.

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Rayney talks of gambling, wife's bullying - The West Australian