Gable Tostee not guilty of murder of Warriena Wright
GABLE Tostee has been found not guilty of the murder of Warriena Wright — his lawyer saying outside court that his client realised it was a “tragic” situation for many people and looked forward to putting it behind him.
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JURORS had been urged to hear Warriena Wright’s terrified screams from beyond the grave and send accused Gold Coast balcony killer Gable Tostee to jail.
But on Thursday, after a gruelling nine-day trial, they sent him home a free man.
After four days of deliberations and a dramatic near-mistrial when one juror outed herself on Instagram, the jury found Mr Tostee not guilty of the murder and manslaughter of his Tinder date, who plunged to her death from his Surfers Paradise high-rise balcony in August 2014.
Mr Tostee sighed heavily with relief, slumped forward and put his head in his hands as the verdicts were handed down. There were gasps and tears in the packed public gallery containing his family and that of Ms Wright, as well as devastated police.
As he left the Brisbane Supreme Court, Mr Tostee looked up and closed his eyes in apparent disbelief that it was all over. Members of the public yelled both abuse and congratulations as he crossed George St to his barrister’s office.
Mr Tostee did not utter a word amid a media scrum but his lawyer, Nick Dore, said the 30-year-old carpet layer was “looking forward to moving on with his life”.
Ms Wright’s shattered family pleaded for privacy to come to terms with the verdict, while police said they would refer the case to the Coroner.
Mr Tostee had pleaded not guilty to murdering Ms Wright, a 26-year-old New Zealander whom he met on dating app Tinder while she was visiting Australia for a friend’s wedding.
She fell to her death from his 14th floor balcony of the Avalon Riverside Apartments building about 2.20am on August 8, 2014, after a night of drunken sex and violent arguing.
A 199-minute mobile phone recording Mr Tostee made of the date night, which included Ms Wright’s hysterical and repeated screams of “no” as she was forced out on to his balcony, was the key evidence in the trial.
When she pleaded for him to let her go home, Mr Tostee told her: “I would but you’ve been a bad girl.”
“You’re lucky I haven’t chucked you off my balcony you god-damn psycho little bitch,” he told her earlier.
The Crown contended Mr Tostee so terrified Ms Wright into trying to escape that he as good as pushed her off the balcony.
Crown prosecutor Glen Cash, QC, said Ms Wright probably unlawfully assaulted Mr Tostee by pelting him with ornamental rocks and hitting him with a telescope bracket, but he had used “unreasonable and excessive” force against the “slight and petite” woman.
Mr Cash said “gurgling sounds” on the tape indicated Mr Tostee had “forcibly and violently” restrained Ms Wright, probably by putting his forearm on her throat, for up to a minute.
Mr Tostee’s “intimidation” of Ms Wright was a significant cause of her death, Mr Cash said.
But Mr Tostee’s lawyers argued he could not be blamed for Ms Wright’s decision to “climb to certain death” on a high-rise balcony.
Defence barrister Saul Holt, QC, said Ms Wright’s death was a “desperate tragedy ... (but) just because somebody is dead does not of itself mean that somebody is to blame”.
Mr Holt said Ms Wright was drunk and acting irrationally and erratically throughout the night, and that putting her on the balcony and locking the door was “an act of de-escalation” rather than intimidation.
He said that within seconds of being locked outside, Ms Wright had made a decision that was neither rational nor reasonably foreseeable to “climb to certain death”.
“This was a climb that couldn’t work unless you were Spiderman,” he told the jury.
The trial was in danger of being aborted yesterday after it was discovered one juror was posting comments about her jury service on Instagram.
Justice John Byrne slammed her conduct as “particularly disappointing” but rejected a defence application to discharge the jury. The juror now faces an investigation for possible contempt of court, which carries up to two years’ jail.
Speaking outside court, Mr Dore said Mr Tostee wanted to thank his supporters “and realises just how tragic this has been for many people”.
“At this stage he is looking forward to putting it behind him and considering his future from here,” he said.
Homicide Squad Detective Inspector Damien Hansen said it had not been a conventional murder investigation. “It was always acknowledged to be a very difficult investigation from the start,” he said. “This matter will now be referred to the State Coroner and as such I will not be commenting on any aspects of the investigation.”
EARLIER
GABLE Tostee has been found not guilty of murdering Warriena Wright after a nine-day trial in the Brisbane Supreme Court.
The 12-person jury has also cleared the 30-year-old of manslaughter in relation to the New Zealander’s death on August 8, 2014 after a Tinder date gone horribly wrong.
Tostee nodded his head and breathed a sigh of relief as the verdict was read out four days after the jury retired to deliberate.
Before the jury was dismissed, Justice John Byrne slammed one of the member’s “disappointing” actions in posting a series of Instagram pictures while empaneled.
The posts did not go into evidence, but were mostly pictures of coffee accompanied by musings such as “snagged a nasty one which is a bit full on” and “fingers crossed this is the last day of jury duty”.
Tostee’s legal team had tried to have the jury discharged over the posts, but failed.
His lawyer gave a brief statement to the media as he left the court.
“He is looking forward to moving on with his life. He thanks the people who have supported him through this and realised how tragic this has been for many people,” his lawyer Nick Dore told reporters.
“At this stage he is looking forward to putting it behind him and considering his future from here.”
Mr Tostee’s family gasped and cried in the courtroom as he was acquitted.
Ms Wright’s family was also brought to tears following the decision, as were members of the jury as they delivered their verdict.
Media gathered outside #tostee trial. pic.twitter.com/KSCDy7aq6l
— Kate Kyriacou (@KateKyriacou) October 20, 2016
Queensland Homicide Victims Support Group spokeswoman Deb Taylor read a statement from Ms Wright’s family outside Brisbane Supreme Court after Tostee was acquitted of Ms Wright’s murder and manslaughter.
“This has been an incredibly traumatic situation for everyone involved in the case, let alone the families who have been impacted by this,” she said.
“As you may appreciate, Warriena Wright’s family are still coming to terms with the loss of their daughter and their sister, as well as enduring the anguish of being present here for this trial these last two weeks.
“They’ve been quite overwhelmed by the media which has added another layer of stress to the trauma that they’ve already been experiencing.”
Ms Taylor said the family was asking the media for privacy now and when they returned to New Zealand, ‘so they have an opportunity to pull the pieces of their own life back together again and have the space to grieve in their own way and in peace’.
Ms Taylor said the family wanted to thank police and the Director of Public Prosecutions “for their incredibly hard work”.
Homicide Squad Detective Inspector Damien Hansen said it had not been a conventional murder investigation.
“It was always acknowledged to be a very difficult investigation from the start,” he said.
“This matter will now be referred to the State Coroner and as such I will not be commenting on any aspects of the investigation.”
The jury had been told it had to be satisfied Tostee instilled enough fear into Ms Wright that she felt she had no choice but to climb from the balcony after they had a violent altercation in the early hours of the morning and he locked her outside.
The prosecution argued Tostee was heavy-handed in restraining the petite 26-year-old — possibly by the throat — after she threw ornamental rocks at him.
The jury heard a harrowing audio recording Tostee made on a mobile phone on the night in which Ms Wright can be heard screaming “no” 33 times and pleading to be allowed to go home.
Ms Wright was heard screaming “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Just let me go home.”
Tostee replied: “I would but you have been a bad girl.”
Ms Wright repeatedly pleaded “just let me go home”.
Her muffled screams were audible as the balcony door apparently closed.
Within seconds of Tostee locking her out on the 14th-floor balcony, she climbed over the railing in a bid to reach the apartments below, but tragically fell to her death.
Tostee has always maintained his innocence, and his defence team argued he was “de-escalating” the situation by putting Ms Wright onto the balcony and could not have foreseen she would climb over.
It was also argued that he was acting in self-defence after she threw the rocks at him and tried to hit him with part of a telescope.
CCTV was played to the jury of the pair meeting less than six hours before Ms Wright’s death in the heart of Surfers Paradise.
The jury was also shown footage from Council cameras of Tostee after Ms Wright plunged to her death, wandering around the tourist hotspot and eating pizza.
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