A jury has been urged to put prejudice aside in considering the "Bermuda triangle" mystery of how Nicholas Dill met his death.

Lawyers in the trial of Andre Hypolite, the man accused of his murder, accepted the jury may have been repulsed by accounts of a drug-fuelled group sex session preceding the violence.

In her closing address, Senior Crown Counsel Paula Tyndale told the eight women and three men: "Some aspects of the evidence showed some very unpleasant aspects of the drug culture and lifestyle of people who use and abuse drugs, but you are not entitled to use any repugnance that you feel towards the evidence or the people."

Defence lawyer John Perry QC told them: "This case tries the morals of Bermuda. It involves drugs. It may jar against your own feelings. You do not have to say 'we will not tolerate conduct like this in Bermuda, this pleasant Island'. You do not have to send out a signal to the general public that you will not tolerate this and therefore you must convict. You would not be doing your duty as a juror and would not be true to your oath."

The Crown's case is that Hypolite took drugs with Mr. Dill, 44, and his girlfriend Stacey Pike, now 37, at their Warwick home on Boxing Day 2004. Ms Pike gave evidence that she performed a sex act on Hypolite in exchange for him giving her and her boyfriend crack cocaine, as had happened on previous occasions.

Next, she said, Mr. Dill let Hypolite perform a sex act on him, which had never happened before. She claimed Hypolite then turned on Mr. Dill and stabbed him in the back after Mr. Dill refused to let Hypolite have sex with him.

She further alleged that Hypolite chopped her in the head when she tried to intervene.

Hypolite, who denies murder and wounding with intent, claims he came under attack from the boyfriend and girlfriend after Mr. Dill walked in on him and Ms Pike about to have sex. He denies being involved in any sex act with Mr. Dill.

Yesterday, Mr. Perry blamed a "cocktail of drugs" – namely ecstacy and cocaine – consumed by Mr. Dill and Ms Pike for sparking violence on their part.

"The case involves drugs. That is not something you can disregard in this case, and may provide the key to understanding what you have heard. Nick Dill and Stacey Pike's apartment became a Bermuda triangle and like that triangle out there in the Atlantic, tragedy struck in the early morning of December 26, 2004," he told the jury.

Mr. Perry – a top lawyer from England – asked them to consider: "What is the effect of these drugs? It leads, on evidence you've heard to, among other things, anxiety, confusion and agitation. Ladies and gentlemen, you are in a different world here. I would put my last English pound – failing though it may be – on this; that you do not have this experience.

"What we don't know, and what no expert is able to give you a definitive view on, is the impact on a person at any given time when they've taken a cocktail of drugs."

He speculated: "It may be that inhibitions were loosened, the desire to remain high on drugs increased. Stacey was more receptive to penetrative sex not because she desired it for the very act itself, but because she wanted to maintain her high. Nick left the room and returned to see the makings of a sexual activity which, you may think, displeased him. In his drug-heightened state he struck the defendant, and to use a phrase I used in my cross-examination, all hell broke loose."

However, asking the jury to accept Ms Pike's version of events, Ms Tyndale said she was not "a stupid type of woman" who would have sex with Hypolite when her boyfriend was in the next room.

Of her evidence about sexual relations between the two men, she asked the jury: "Why, oh why, would she make up such a thing? Why would she make up such a fantastic story to defame her own boyfriend? Why would she build in that detail if you're being told she's lying about everything she said?"

On top of this, said Ms Tyndale, it was Ms Pike's evidence and not Hypolite's that tallied with what a blood spatter expert and forensic pathologist had concluded.

"She would have to have CSI training to know the mechanics of what happened, to know the positioning, to be able to make up such a story," she said.

The case continues.