Accused a coiled spring, counsel says

By the time he killed Sophie Elliott on January 9 last year, former economics tutor Clayton Weatherston was like "a coiled spring", his lawyer, Judith Ablett-Kerr, told the jury in her three-hour closing address yesterday

And the trigger that released that spring was what occurred between him and Miss Elliott in her bedroom when she, in anger and frustration, made insulting remarks about his family, responded to his accusation of infidelity and the need for STD tests and lost the plot herself.

She yelled out "F... you, Clayton" and attacked him with scissors, knocking his glasses off.

Far from being a calm and premeditated attack, Weatherston's response was spontaneous - "horrific but spontaneous" - because of what had gone on before in the relationship and because of the "trigger" in the bedroom.

The Crown accused Weatherston of not taking responsibility for anything, but he had pleaded guilty to manslaughter, a crime second only to murder.

He had accepted responsibility for assaulting his former partner.

Mrs Ablett-Kerr suggested traces of Miss Elliott's blood found on the inside of Weatherston's laptop bag created "a difficulty for the Crown".

They meant the knife had been removed from the bag only after Miss Elliott had started bleeding.

The Crown tried to suggest Weatherston had brought scissors with him to the house as well as the knife, but that allegation was later withdrawn.

The issue for them was whether Weatherston was a cold-blooded premeditated killer, or someone who, as a result of provocation, lost his self-control and committed "this terrible act", Mrs Ablett-Kerr told the jurors.

The defence case was very clear - that he was provoked by the emotional pain of the torrid and tumultuous relationship he had experienced over those months and which he was ill-equipped to deal with because or his own personality makeup.

The Crown said there was no evidence of a downward spiral in Weatherston's condition, and that by January 8 he was having discussions with friends and colleagues about the future but that somehow, on January 9 he woke up "this person with no personality disorders" on his birthday and decided: "Today I will go and kill Sophie Elliott".

Commonsense would tell them "this man is not normal", Mrs Ablett-Kerr said.

Weatherston was a man who was psychologically challenged because of his personality.

"But he's not a psychopath, not a schizophrenic, not on P.

"It doesn't make sense", she said.

What caused the incident on January 9 was Miss Elliott attacking him with scissors, causing him to lose control and in the context of what had happened earlier in the relationship "and that was pretty horrific in itself".

Also on his mind was the question of what damage Miss Elliott's supervisor Robert Alexander could do to his job application.

He suspected Sophie would tell Dr Alexander what had happened during incidents on December 27 and January 7.