While the tradesman was working in the apartment, he heard Santino yelling at Kendra in the bedroom. When she came out of the room, she was wearing heavy make-up but the swelling and rawness on the side of her face were still visible through the thick layer of foundation. She was shaking and unsteady on her feet.

The tradesman turned to address the jury directly. ‘That woman was scared.’

He then described going to the kitchen, on the pretext of fetching a glass of water, so he could ask Kendra if she was okay. She whispered to him, ‘I’m leaving. Don’t worry. I’m outta here.’

Very soon after that, Santino hustled the tradesman out the door.

In cross-examination, Woodburn made a performance of being confused by the tradie’s testimony.

‘So—excuse me if I’ve misunderstood—if you thought Kendra Bartlett was in danger, why didn’t you do anything to help her?’

‘I should’ve punched him in the face,’ the witness snapped back, flicking his head to where John Santino was sitting. ‘Should’ve punched his lights out and got her out of there.’

‘Oh dear,’ Woodburn responded with fake dismay. ‘There’s no need to punch anyone. We have systems in place in this country to protect people. If you were so worried, why didn’t you ring the police?’

‘I should’ve,’ answered the tradie, his voice low, dragged down by lead weights. ‘I think about it every day. I should’ve.’

Again, Anita saw that Woodburn had miscalculated. By pushing this witness, all he’d succeeded in doing was provoking a decent man to express what many people in that courtroom were feeling.

After the lunch adjournment, it was Rohan’s turn on the stand. As one of the detectives on the case, his task was to present the evidence that had been gathered about Kendra’s last hours.

Bank records showed she had withdrawn all the remaining cash in her account at an ATM near Santino’s apartment. She put the cash and her passport in a travel pouch concealed under her clothing, suggesting she was escaping Santino rather than leaving the apartment with a plan to kill herself.

Her Opal card records indicated she caught a train from Edgecliff station and then changed trains at Central to travel to Kingsgrove.

In CCTV footage from Kingsgrove station, Kendra could be seen alighting from the train at speed, running along the platform, looking behind her with a fearful expression. The accused, John Santino, could be clearly seen running after her. He later explained to police that he used an app installed on Kendra’s phone to locate and follow her.