Four months after Ewen Macdonald was acquitted of killing his brother-in-law Scott Guy his legal team have criticised tactics used by the prosecution.

Mr Guy was shot dead in July 2010 in the driveway of his Feilding home and in July this year Macdonald was found not guilty of his murder after a trial in the High Court at Wellington.

In September, Macdonald was sentenced to five years' in prison for six other charges he had admitted.

In a new article in North & South magazine, Macdonald's defence team say the police and Crown prosecutor Ben Vanderkolk deliberately attempted to stall the defence case.

Macdonald's defence was headed by top lawyer Greg King, who was found dead in non-suspicious circumstances in Wellington 10 days ago.

Before the trial, Mr King had asked for help from Mr Vanderkolk to access computer software that could help them search several CDs of evidence disclosed to the defence, but Mr Vanderkolk refused, saying he had "no obligation" to provide a search engine.

After nearly two months of disagreement over the issue, the Crown agreed to provide the police file in a searchable format.

Macdonald's co-counsel Peter Coles said it appeared the police and Crown were going out of their way to hinder the defence.

"There's no other way of looking at it. There was a deliberate attempt by the police not to give us disclosure we were entitled to," he said.

He said the police and Crown also failed to tell them that Macdonald's phones had been bugged before his arrest on April 7 last year.

Police said no relevant information was gathered from the bugging.

An investigator for the defence team, Paul Bass, also told North & South that police had persuaded locals not to assist the defence.

Crown Law and Police National Headquarters were not aware of the article, and were unable to immediately comment on the story.

The officer in charge of the case, Detective Inspector Sue Schwalger, and Mr Vanderkolk did not immediately return calls.