Gable Tostee’s lawyer has suggested Warriena Wright’s decision to climb down from Tostee’s 14th-floor Gold Coast balcony was not rational, after the prosecution earlier suggested she was in a "state of terror" when she fell to her death from the balcony.
Tostee, 30, did not testify after pleading not guilty on Monday in the Brisbane Supreme Court to murdering Ms Wright, 26, who died about 2.20am on August 8, 2014, after they met via the Tinder dating app.
The prosecution contends Tostee restrained Ms Wright, forced her out on to his balcony and locked the door after she threw decorative rocks at him following drunken sex. She then fell to her death.
In his closing submission, Tostee’s defence barrister Saul Holt QC said Ms Wright’s decision to climb from the balcony was made before she took time to assess the situation and that "she could never reach the balcony below".
"She made the decision to climb to certain death..." Mr Holt said.
"For a decision to climb off a 14th-floor balcony… the threat you were facing would have to be absolutely immediate, it would have to be someone chasing you with a knife… and it wasn’t."
"This was a climb that couldn’t work unless you were Spiderman, or a ninja... as she called herself earlier."
Earlier, Mr Holt called the night "a first date that went horribly wrong", and urged the jury not to classify people as "goodies and baddies".
"It’s a desperate tragedy, but it’s not murder and it’s not manslaughter," he said.
"Mr Tostee and Ms Wright could not in their worst nightmares have conceived how this night was going to turn out."
Mr Holt suggested Ms Wright had "her own flaws and her own virtues", and that her behaviour was at times "really weird", "unpredictable" and "irrational".
He claimed Tostee's response to her behaviour was kind and at times even "gentlemanly".
Mr Holt suggested an ordinary person could not have foreseen that Ms Wright would try to climb over the balcony.
Earlier, crown prosecutor Glen Cash suggested Tostee’s use of force against Ms Wright was unreasonable, and said an audio recording made by Tostee on the night suggested as much.
Mr Cash said Ms Wright’s last words on the recording – “Let me go” – and Tostee’s reply of “I would, but you’ve been a bad girl” suggested Tostee’s response to her actions were not justified.
Ms Wright was then locked out on the balcony without her phone, leaving her with two options – to either attempt to re-enter the apartment and face Tostee, whom she greatly feared, or try to climb down from the balcony and seek refuge on another floor, Mr Cash suggested.
Mr Cash said that if the jury had been persuaded that Tostee caused Ms Wright terror, then he had caused her death as much as if he had pushed her.
Justice John Byrne is yet to give his directions to the jury.