A WOMAN charged with stabbing her boyfriend to death in a supposed love row was not even on the riverbank where he died, her barrister said.

Natasha Elderfield, 41, denies murdering Robert Dobinson on a boat in Abingdon on Sunday, October 19, last year.

The prosecution alleges Mr Dobinson walked in on Elderfield and her lover Tony Steggles, leading to a violent argument in which she stabbed him with a kitchen knife.

But in his closing statement in the trial at Oxford Crown Court yesterday defence barrister Andrew Hall said there was no convincing evidence Mr Dobinson was stabbed on board the boat or Elderfield ever left the boat.

He said: “The reality is they can’t say when or where that happened.”

He said no evidence of blood was found on the boat Mr Hall also called Mr Steggles’s evidence, a key part of the prosecution’s case, a “complete fantasy”.

He described Mr Steggles’s conduct in his relationship with Elderfield as “loathsome” and warned the jury: “Your assessment of him is perhaps the single most important factor in this case.”

Judge Patrick Eccles began summing up the case by outlining the definitions of murder, manslaughter and self-defence.

Judge Eccles will conclude his summing up from 10.30am on Monday before the jury is sent out.