Tostee trial: The Kiwi lawyer, the playboy and the Instafail

The last 90 minutes of dramatic courtroom theatre before Saul Holt‘s client Gable Tostee learned his fate was something the veteran lawyer says he has never experienced before - and may never experience again.

The verdict was delayed as a juror was investigated for outing herself on Instagram during the case, and Holt’s team called for a mistrial.

Then, the Instagram revelation was leaked to the public by a livetweeting mystery blonde, the verdict came in acquitting his client, and Justice John Byrne revealed to the surprised jury one among their number had almost derailed the whole trial. Then, As a media scrum awaited Tostee, top cops at court attempted to nab Kiwi reporter Ruth Wynn-Williams, from TVNZ, taking her for the offending blonde tweeter, in a case of mistaken identity.

Then there was the media circus awaiting his client and Kiwi Warriena Wright’s grieving family.

Tostee trailed off from the the Supreme Court of Queensland, silently towering above the crowd of question-shouting, microphonethrusting, photo-snapping crews as members of the public hurled insults from the sidelines.

‘‘It was a pretty interesting time that hour and a half,’’ the former Palmerston North prosecutor said yesterday.

‘‘I’ve never experienced anything like it. I may never experience anything like it again.’’

Holt, QC, believed the result full acquittal of murder and manslaughter charges - clearing his client of culpability in Wright’s August 8, 2014, balcony fall death, showed the jury had been able to do its job.

It truly was a trial of the 21st century, Holt agreed. ‘‘In every sense - from the fact that the evening started on Tinder to the fact that the trial ended up in argument about Instagram, it kind of had everything in between.

‘‘I think it’s just a reality of modern, high-profile criminal trials. I think there’s no point trying to rail against it, we’ve just got to work out the best ways of dealing with it and managing it.’’

Holt said he had given up trying to predict jury behaviour a decade ago, and even he did not know what to expect the jury would decide.

After Tostee was acquitted they spent time in Holt’s solicitor’s offices debriefing and waiting for the media scrum to disperse, then Tostee took a train back to his parents’ place on the Gold Coast: ‘‘And I haven’t spoken to him since.’’

Yesterday, Australian media poured forth fresh reports on Tostee. Photographers lurked outside his parents’ home.

So what did the so-called ‘‘Gold Coast playboy’’ think of the press? ‘‘I’m not going to comment on what he privately thought about the media - the media inquisition he’s been [through] over the past two years has not been pleasant.

‘‘I think him not talking at the moment is a function of the need to just process what’s happened and realise that he now has a chance to get on with the rest of his life.’’

There was no such return to normality for Wright’s family bereaved and reeling from the release of the secret recordings Tostee made, that became the central motif of the trial.

Her family also had to see her character smeared in the press as some questioned her morals in meeting Tostee, a stranger, via Tinder for sex.

‘‘The commentary there has been on her morality more generally, in my view, well - that had no place in the trial, and it no place in the commentary,’’ Holt said. ‘‘It’s nobody’s business.’’

"I've never experienced anything like it. I may never experience anything like it again." Saul Holt, QC