Man acquitted of Tinder death 'didn't hear' date's final scream

An Australian man recently acquitted of murder after his Tinder date fell from the balcony of his apartment said in a controversial interview that he did not hear her final scream.

In October Gable Tostee, 30, was acquitted of the murder of New Zealand woman Warriena Wright, 27, who died after falling from the balcony of his apartment in Queensland's Surfers Paradise resort in 2014.

Tostee and Wright met through the dating App Tinder, before returning to Tostee's 14th floor apartment. Later in the the evening they had a violent argument, which Tostee recorded on his iPhone.

Channel Nine's 60 Minutes programme is believed to have paid Tostee up to A$150,000 (£90,000, USD$115,000) for a tell-all interview, which has generated controversy in Australia.

During the interview, Tostee was asked why he had not gone to look over the edge of the balcony when he saw that Wright had fallen. "Instinctively, I knew that if I ran out there and somebody saw me looking over the edge and she had actually fallen all the way, it would look like, you know, it would not look good," Tostee said. "It would look like I had forced her over or something. Of course I was worried about her. I was absolutely terrified at what had just happened to her. But, you know.

"Well, whatever had happened out there, had happened. And, looking over the edge, you know, it doesn't help anybody. There's no purpose to it."

Tostee said that he recorded nights out as a matter of course "just in case" something happened. He claims that he did not hear Wright scream, though the sound was audible on the 199-minute audio recording.

"I didn't hear it with my own ears, no. I only realised that there was a faint scream that my phone audio picked up. All I saw was her on the other side of the rail for a fleeting moment, and then… And then she was gone."

Tostee and Wright consumed a six pack of beer and homemade vodka after returning to his apartment. After 40 minutes the pair began to argue when Wright lost her mobile telephone, and she pelted Tostee with small rocks.

Interviewer Liam Bartlett questioned Tostee about why he had forced Wright on to the balcony, instead of out of the front door.

"When you have to desperately get someone away from you and separate the two of you and try and de-escalate an altercation, it doesn't come into the equation that that person is going to climb off a balcony and fall 14 floors to their death." Tostee said. "It was a lot, lot closer to the balcony door, and it was wide open, and it was the logical option at the time."

He was also asked why his first call was to his lawyer, rather than emergency services, after Wright fell. "Nobody is trained for a situation like this. It's like being hit by lightning. There is no right or wrong way to proceed from there," he said. "What had happened had happened, and there's nothing an ambulance could do to change that."

Australians took to Twitter to criticise Channel Nine for broadcasting the interview.