THE DEFENCE CASE

TO say Gable Tostee intended to cause Warriena Wright grievous bodily harm is a long bow to draw, defence barrister Saul Holt QC said yesterday.

He told the jury the Crown could not prove the accused killer caused Ms Wright to fear for her death so much so that she jumped from the 14th-floor balcony.

Mr Holt said the Kiwi woman was “irrational” and “unreasonable” and made her own decision to “climb to her certain death”.

“This is as weak a Crown case on intention to do grievous bodily harm.”

In addressing the move not to put Tostee on the stand, Mr Holt said an accused was not required to do so in a criminal trial and the jury should not infer anything from the decision.

He said the recording Tostee made the night of incident would decide the case and “is really the reason I’ve asked so few questions”.

“The Crown has called 22 witnesses but still all that matters is the recording.”

Mr Holt yesterday sought to persuade the jury to find Tostee not guilty on both murder and manslaughter charges because the recording showed he did not act unlawfully and was aware there was evidence of his actions that evening.

He said it showed Ms Wright was acting “unpredictably” and “irrationally” and hit Tostee repeatedly.

Mr Holt argued the prosecution accepted Tostee was allowed to restrain Ms Wright out of self-defence.

Mr Holt said Ms Wright told Mr Tostee she would “destroy his (expletive) jaw”, threw rocks at him and hit him in the head with a metal clamp that attached to a telescope.

“His response is patient, almost exclusively kind, gentlemanly even,” he said.

“The metal clamp is the biggest problem in the Crown’s case ... you should have no doubt at all that Ms Wright used the clamp to try and hit Mr Tostee ... at least that is the only logical conclusion to be drawn from the evidence.”

He later said that throwing rocks at someone in their own home was “a proper attack” and Ms Wright’s screams were “unquestionably” disturbing but not indicative of fear, rather hysteria.

“He puts her outside, shuts the door and locks it. It is a de-escalation of the situation,” he said.

Mr Holt said the findings by forensic pathologist Dianne Little showed no evidence of injury on Ms Wright caused by Tostee.

“He is the one with the injuries,” said Mr Holt, referring to abraisions on Tostee’s body the day after Ms Wright died.

Mr Holt told the jury the Crown had “backpeddled” from the allegation that Tostee had caused Ms Wright to fear for her life when he “choked” her and said there was no physical evidence to show Ms Wright had been strangled or choked.

He also warned the jury not to draw inference from what Tostee did after Ms Wright fell from the balcony.

“Please resist the temptation to think there is some proper way to behave after something like this has happened,” Mr Holt said in relation to Tostee stopping to buy pizza.

“Gable Tostee, the Tinder killer and Warriena Wright the innocent victim, is not the way this happened in real life.

“He is a son, he is a brother, he is a friend ... he has his own virtues and his own flaws.”

Arguing the Crown case was based on “speculation”, Mr Holt told the jury it could acquit Tostee of both murder and manslaughter.

“When somebody has died, our reaction is to try and fix it... (to) find somebody responsible and look for answers,” Mr Holt said.

“Just because somebody is dead does not itself mean someone is criminally responsible for that death.”