David Warner has revived memories of what he once described as “derogatory and vulgar” abuse by New Zealand fans as he prepares to make his final tour of the country.

Two years before the Sandpapergate scandal made him a prominent crowd target, Warner complained of widespread abuse during the 2016 tour, which included attacks on his family.

“They got personal,” Warner said in Wellington on Monday, before a three-match Twenty 20 series beginning on Wednesday. “If they have to get personal, that’s their character. I just go about my business. That’s upon each individual.

“If you want to pay your money to come and abuse people then, you know, you have to go back and lay in your own bed. We get to play the game of cricket that we love.”

In 2016, Warner described the abuse to which he and his teammates were subjected as “derogatory and vulgar”.

“To be honest, it’s something we’re always going to have in our minds. It doesn’t matter if you’re at home or away, you’re going to cop some form of abuse,” Warner said during the second Test in Christchurch eight years ago. A spectator was evicted from Hagley Oval for relentlessly heckling Australian fast bowler Josh Hazlewood.

“We don’t expect to wake up and be hounded for six or seven hours. Some of the stuff was pretty derogatory and vulgar [and] the upsetting thing was the fact that if my two daughters were in the crowd, I wouldn’t want them listening to that sort of stuff.

“It was irrelevant what they said, but it’s disappointing that it was happening in every game. A couple of bowlers who were down on the boundary got the odd banter here or there, but when they start talking about people’s families it takes it a little too far.