In the final words of his closing address to the Supreme Court, defence counsel David Hallowes said the picture painted by the prosecution was not clear for the jury.

“You have been told how you could view it as being a bit like a jigsaw puzzle,'' he said.

"But it's a jigsaw puzzle where the starting point is you don't have the picture on the cover of the box,’’ he said.

“You don't know what the jigsaw pieces are going to show, and you don't have to.

"In this jigsaw puzzle illustration, you don't have to have every single jigsaw piece.

“But you have to have enough pieces that you get a sufficient clarity of picture before you could say, ‘that's a picture beyond reasonable doubt that Harley Hicks was the perpetrator of these crimes’.

““What I suggest to you is when you look at these pieces, at these jigsaw pieces, when properly analysed, thoroughly examined,  a number of them don't really take it anywhere.’’

Mr Hallowes said the key pieces of evidence that did not fit were:

* Phone records between Ashley Hicks and his girlfriend on the night of the child’s death, showing text messages stopped at 12.09am – the same time a person was chased from a house in Duncan Street.

* Details about Harley’s arrival back at his Green Street address in the early hours of June 15, and what he was or was not carrying with him;

*A text message sent from Harley to his brother Josh Hicks, asking him to put a white box in the car and make sure it’s hidden;

* The baton and wallet not being found during the first search at the Green Street address.

"What I suggest is when you look at this case, when you come to analyse the evidence in the somewhat cold-hearted manner that you have to, using your common sense, an intellectual exercise, looking at all these pieces of evidence, you do not have sufficient clarity to say that it was Harley Hicks and not Ashley Hicks,'' Mr Hallowes said. 

​The trial continues.

HARLEY HICKS TRIAL - DAY BY DAY