GORDON WOOD said he would be "an idiot" to have pointed out his girlfriend's body if he had murdered her, he said in a 1998 television interview.
The interview, which was recorded by Paul Barry for the now-defunct Channel Seven program Witness , was played to the jury at Wood's murder trial yesterday. The 45-year-old has pleaded not guilty to throwing Caroline Byrne to her death at The Gap in June 1995.
The journalist pressed Wood about his actions on the night of his girlfriend's death, including Wood's claim to have spotted the body using feeble torchlight - despite the fact that no one else could see to the bottom of the cliff.
Wood said he may have been "pointing the torch at something else that's not so far down".
"Or maybe knowing that she's down there?" suggested Barry.
Wood retorted: "I would be a bit of an idiot, wouldn't I, to point to everybody about where she was if I had killed her. That would be a little bit dense."
Barry also asked why Wood had not rung her father, since Caroline's brother had left a message on the home answering machine inviting her over that evening.
"With all due respect to her father, her father has come up with some pretty outrageous, unsubstantiated claims," replied Wood.
Barry replies: "I'm talking about your behaviour. On this night when your girlfriend goes missing … you don't ring anybody, you say you get in a car and you travelled to Bondi and then you look on top of the cliff?"
Wood said that he was in a "terrible panic and certainly not in a rational state".
He also said that he did not go straight to The Gap, but had looked for her car outside her father's house and had then had driven to Bondi and Camp Cove.
"Why would she be at Camp Cove?" asked Barry.
"That's where we used to go for picnics all the time," Wood replied.
"In the middle of the night, a picnic?" retorted Barry.
Wood said, "I would think she has gone to somewhere where we used to hang out."
Barry also put to Wood that he was able to tell police at The Gap what clothes Ms Byrne had been wearing. "How the hell would you know what clothes she was wearing?"
Wood said it was "easy" because Caroline owned only one denim jacket, one pair of runners and two pairs of black tights. "You knew that much about her?" asked Barry.
"I knew everything about her," said Wood.
In other evidence yesterday, a forensic pathologist, John Hilton, said that having viewed the autopsy report into Ms Byrne's death, there was no way to determine whether she was thrown, pushed, jumped, dived or slipped off The Gap.
Professor Hilton, a witness for the defence, gave evidence yesterday because he will not be available later in the case.
Professor Hilton, who has carried out up to 15,000 autopsies, said that from the pattern of her injuries there was no way of determining which of the two holes at the cliff base Ms Byrne had landed in.
Professor Hilton also cast doubt on the Crown's suggestion that Ms Byrne's died from extensive head injuries that had been caused by a "spear-throw". He said that if that had been the case, he would have expected to see more neck and spine injuries.
He said that due to injuries to her left lung, kidney and spleen, it was more likely that she had landed horizontally first. When asked whether he would expect to see matching external injuries in that area, Professor Hilton said not necessarily, and that he would have "an open mind".
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