I still love my husband, Kissel tells court

Nancy Kissel cried out 'I still love my husband' in court yesterday after a prosecutor argued she was seeking to paint Robert Peter Kissel as an abusive husband and father.

Prosecutor Peter Chapman also cast doubts on her claims of memory loss surrounding November 2, 2003, the date she is alleged to have bludgeoned her banker husband to death in the bedroom of their Parkview flat. He said Kissel's own lawyer had told the court she had no psychiatric problem or suicidal history in applying for bail last year.

Kissel, 41, said yesterday she had never approached anyone - including her maids, good friends, parents at Hong Kong International School or the rabbi of United Jewish Congregation - to talk about her husband's sexual and physical assaults before her visits to a marriage counsellor, a general practitioner and a psychiatrist in the latter half of 2003. She said she told the doctors of the assaults but did not know if she had told them about the anal sex she alleged her husband had forced on her.

'Who do you think was appropriate [to approach]?' asked Mr Chapman. 'I hadn't thought about approaching anyone,' she said.

'Because it's not happening, Mrs Kissel?' said Mr Chapman, who argued there was no witness to support her allegations of abuse by her husband. 'Because it's something I chose to accept for a number of years ... It was something I was very ashamed of,' she said. 'Something I am still ashamed of.'

Kissel, who also worked as a freelance photographer taking pictures for families, was asked if she had any photographic record of her injuries. She said she was not in possession of her photos.