The crown says its case against Liam James Reid on murder, attempted murder, and rape charges is overwhelming, but the defence says jurors will find it "fragile and inconsistent".
Reid's defence counsel, David Bunce, today asked the jury to consider whether crown evidence would measure up to crown promises in its opening address.
He told Justice Lester Chisholm and the High Court jury that "prejudicial froth" made up the crown's case.
Rather than proving that Reid, 36, had committed the crimes alleged, the crown evidence was about whether he was the kind of person who might have committed these crimes.
He said the defence was that Reid was not the person who had committed the crimes.
He said phone records needed to be analysed carefully to see what they did prove, and he spoke of "the poverty of the quality of the forensic evidence on which the crown relies".
He said the phone records would show that Emma Agnew, whom Reid is accused of murdering, was driving alone to Spencerville on the day she died and was perfectly OK as she did so.
The crown case is that she was already with Reid, and that she was murdered and her body left near Spencer Park.
He asked the jury to be careful of eyewitness evidence because such witnesses could sometimes get details "horribly wrong".
Crown prosecutor Pip Currie said Reid's girlfriend would give evidence about rough sex and rape roleplay. She would also tell of him punching her in the genitals, evidence that would also be given by the Dunedin woman about the sex attack on her. Evidence from the pathologist would show the same injuries on the body of Emma Agnew.
"A significant aspect that connects the two attacks relates to the level of sexual violence that has occurred with a particular reference to the genital punching. The crown says this is a most unusual sexual practice," Mrs Currie said.
She described it as "a signature".
The crown has been told that Reid says he has an alibi for the time of Miss Agnew's disappearance, but Mrs Currie said it could be dismissed as "entirely fabricated."
