"Is Nancy Kissel the sort of person who would commit the type of crime the prosecution alleges?" Senior Counsel Alexander King asked.

"Does she have it in her to shop for drugs, serve them in a milkshake to her husband and then bludgeon him to death while he lies defenseless, with five lacerations to the head, each one of them fatal? The answer is `no."'

Kissel, 41, is accused of drugging her investment banker husband Robert and murdering him with a heavy metal ornament on November 2, 2003.

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She denies the charge and has testified that there was a furious fight that night, during which she feared for her life, and used the ornament to fend off blows from her husband as he swung at her with a baseball bat.

Gabriel Ip, the former bus director for Hong King International School, had told the cour earlier that, in the years he was acquainted with her, he found Kissel to be "very kind, pleasant, always helpful to kids."King said in his final speech that character witnesses such as Ip, who were acquainted with the accused but not personal friends, were vital in considering whether she had the "propensity" to conduct such an act.

Ip's testimony was "straightforward, honest, truthful, heartfelt," said King.

Throughout the trial, King said, there had been little dispute that the accused was a kind and loving mother, who was deeply involved with charitable organizations, the school and the community.

King also continued a line of attack on the scientific basis on which the prosecution case relies.

Convinced of Kissel's guilt, the police had "nothing to investigate" from day one, leaving vital areas either missed, discarded or not presented to the jury, submitted King.

"You should be very concerned why a proper investigation was not done and why the full picture was not put before you," he said.

He added that there was a further "positive defense case," with doctors testifying as to the reason for the prescription of drugs, friends recollecting signs of injury to the accused and character witnesses supporting her.

King claimed Tuesday that the prosecution played down its own scientific case because it realized it wasn't wholly reliable. There were no photography specialists to ensure a detailed search for blood spots or stains and, consequently, areas were "simply missed," said King.

The investigation lacked coherence, King said, pointing out that one government scientist had taken photographs of the master bedroom, recording blood spots in various areas around the room, but the scientist who conducted the bloodstain pattern analysis was unaware of that record, and conducted his examination primarily at the foot of the bed.

Referring to photographs of a laboratory experiment that reconstructed the couple's bed, King insisted the reconstruction showed far more blood spatters in areas around the bed.

Such results "didn't fit with the case of him lying still at the end of the bed." These findings would, therefore, support the defense case that "there was a fight in the bedroom that night," and so it was left out of the prosecution evidence.

King also questioned the scientific logic that a government expert used to say that a baseball bat presented in evidence had not come into contact with the murder weapon.

The prosecution's toxicology report on Robert Kissel's corpse, King added, was also "inconclusive" in that it could not prove whether "he was - one, unconscious; or two, so severely impaired that he could not defend himself," on the day of the murder.

King told the jury to consider the testimony of other neighbors who saw Robert Kissel speaking coherently before his death, and CCTV photographs of him making phone calls that evening. The jury should conclude that Robert Kissel was not "drugged, unconscious or severely impaired."

Apart from criticizing the police investigation and government scientists, King also summarized how his own witnesses supported the defense case.

He noted the prosecution relied on the "theory" that the accused went "shopping for drugs" as part of her pre- meditated scheme.

"But, of course, they didn't call Dr Fung or Dr Dytham to explain why they had prescribed those drugs," said King.

Desmond Fung and Annabelle Dytham testified for the defense that the drugs were prescribed for the accused's sleep problems and depression from marital abuse, submitted King.

Friends of the accused said they had seen black eyes, bruises and signs of rib injury on several occasions between 1998 and 2003, which supported the case of an "abusive relationship in which Robert Kissel inflicted physical violence on his wife," said King.

He asked the jury to return a "true verdict" of "not guilty to murder."