A jury is waiting for final instructions before retiring to consider its verdict in a case described as "bizarre" by the barrister defending a woman accused of helping to kidnap a Brisbane schoolteacher, who later died on a motorway in northern NSW.
The Lismore District Court has heard six days of evidence during the trial of Lauren Grainger, who is one of three people accused of illegally detaining Anthony Stott near Tweed Heads in February 2020.
The court heard that in the hours leading up to his death, Mr Stott drove south from Brisbane, abandoned his silver BMW on the M1 motorway at Cudgera Creek, and appeared at Ms Grainger's back door at 4am.
The 43-year-old was allegedly tied to a chair on a nearby property for a number of hours before being released, at which point he made his way back to the highway where he was hit by a truck.
No actual bodily harm
Ms Grainger is accused of hitting Mr Stott with a golf club while he was tied to the chair, but the judge directed the jury to find her not guilty of actual bodily harm due to a lack of evidence.
Defence barrister David Funch told the court his client was in a state of "sheer panic" after Mr Stott appeared at the back door of her home early in the morning.
The court heard he had no drugs or alcohol in his system, but was talking "gibberish" and refused to reveal his name or why he was there.
"Nothing about this case is normal, it's bizarre," Mr Funch said.
"Ironically someone who is subject to a home invasion, is accused of being criminal kidnapper.
"She might be stupid, she might have acted like an idiot, she might have been drunk, there may have been 50 ways she could have handled this better, but she is not a kidnapper."
But prosecutor Joshua Hanna told the court it was not reasonable to keep Mr Stott tied up.
"It's not a spur-of-the-moment thing we are considering here … they had Mr Stott tied up for hours," he said.
"The accused knew she had mistreated Mr Stott and knew it was unreasonable and knew it had been violent.
"They should have called the police and ambulance from the outset."
In summing up, Judge Jeffery McLennan told the jurors they needed to take into account if the accused believed it necessary to defend herself and the circumstances as she perceived them to be, but not if her response to the circumstances was reasonable.
"You need to consider if it was a reasonable response of a sober person, as a drunken person may perceive them," he said.
Judge McLennan will give his final instructions to the jury on Wednesday morning before it retires to consider a verdict.
