MOMENTS before QC David Jeremy opened the defence case for Danilo Restivo last Monday he told a young member of his team training to be a barrister: “You will never see a day like this in court again.”

At times during the day he conducted Restivo’s defence, David Jeremy QC sounded as though he was cross examining his own client.

Mr Jeremy appeared irritated on occasion, especially Restivo offered more in his answers than he was being asked for.

And because Restivo had either changed his story or refused to comment on numerous matters over the years in both the Claps and the Barnett cases, Mr Jeremy was forced to confront the lies and inconsistencies himself, rather than waiting for prosecution to rip his client’s story to shreds on the witness stand.

At one point, during evidence about the towel found in Heather’s flat with Restivo’s DNA on it, Mr Jeremy told him he had offered different versions of where it had come from.

“Your stories are inconsistent aren’t they? Do you see? They can’t both be true.”

Time and again Mr Jeremy was forced to ask Restivo why he had lied in police interviews and to his wife in bugged conversations.

As Restivo’s defence wore on, his story, always barely credible became totally unbelievable. Over three days of cross examination, his credibility was torn to pieces by the experienced and carefully controlled Michael Bowes and the longer he sat in the witness box the bigger the hole he dug. He claimed he had picked up the knife found in his car at Throop by police and that a balaclava was there to keep his head warm in winter because of sinus problem.

The tissues in his car were used to collect insects for his lizards at home and scissors found on him were used to cut stories out of newspapers.

He also claimed he visited the escalator building site in Potenza after meeting Elisa Claps in the church on the day she went missing because he was intrigued by its “ingenious design”.

In closing the defence on Monday, Mr Jeremy again tackled head on the problems his client presented.

He was a liar and a “deeply unattractive oddity”.

He said Restivo was often in the habit of exchanging a bad lie for an even worse one and admitted that he had self destructed in the witnesses box.

But all that did not make him a killer.

However, the jury decided that his defence was simply one incredible lie after another.

As Mr Bowes said in his closing speech: “His lies have found him out.”