The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, gave evidence via video link against the 41-year-old man, who has pleaded not guilty to child neglect charges.

The man's accuser told the court he was sent home early from kindergarten on March 20 because he had been naughty in class.

He told Chief Magistrate Ron Cahill his stepfather was angry when he arrived at the school.

''He hates me being naughty at school,'' the child said.

The boy told the court after the pair walked home together, the man tied him up with tape and a skipping rope.

''He tied my legs at the jeans over my trousers and then when [he] did that [he] sticky-taped my mouth and he tied my hands with the skipping rope,'' he said.

The boy said he watched the man leave the house then tried to free himself.

''I was hopping to my brother's room and I saw [him] going away and I tried to take the skipping rope off my hands,'' he said.

''I went into the bathroom to take the sticky tape off from my mouth.''

But he said he could not walk because the tape was around his shins.

''I hopped,'' he told the court.

Under cross-examination, the child denied suggestions from his stepfather's defence lawyer that he bound himself with the tape and skipping rope.

But the boy did not repeat allegations made to police in March that his stepfather hit him with a stick.

The court heard the accused admitted to investigators that he had left his stepson at home alone, but said he did not restrain the child.

A police statement of facts said the boy was left in the empty house from about 10.30am until his mother returned home four hours later.

She took the child to the police station but felt she was unable to make a statement because her husband was already on a good behaviour order for earlier offences.

When she returned home with the boy and asked her husband why he had left the child alone, he allegedly said the boy had been naughty and he had ''important things to do''.

The mother went back to the police station that evening and made a statement, and the man was arrested.

The hearing continues.