A court sketch of accused double murderer Beau Lamarre-Condon, who has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and one of aggravated break and enter. Photograph: Rocco Fazzari/AAPView image in fullscreenA court sketch of accused double murderer Beau Lamarre-Condon, who has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and one of aggravated break and enter. Photograph: Rocco Fazzari/AAPBeau Lamarre-Condon admits entering Jesse Baird’s house when he wasn’t home and eating Easter egg, murder trial hearsFormer police officer tells jury he joked about being ‘white girl crazy’ with friends as lawyer questions him about start of relationship with TV presenter
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Beau Lamarre-Condon has denied misusing his authority as a police officer to access CCTV footage of Jesse Baird or stalking him after their breakup, a court has heard.
But he admitted he entered Baird’s house while he wasn’t home to retrieve belongings, and ate an Easter egg he had bought for the television presenter.
The former police officer is accused of fatally shooting Baird and his new partner, Luke Davies, with his police service weapon in Baird’s Paddington home in Sydney on 19 February 2024.
He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and one charge of aggravated break and enter.
Sitting in the witness box for the fourth day, Lamarre-Condon was asked about CCTV footage of Baird at the Royal Paddington hotel that was found on the former officer’s iCloud account.
During cross-examination on Tuesday, the crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield asked: “You were stalking Jesse Baird and also misusing your authority as a policeman to access CCTV of him, weren’t you?”
But Lamarre-Condon denied this, telling the court he had been working in Sydney’s city centre on 19 May 2023 when Baird invited him to the Royal Paddington hotel.
He said he had bumped into other officers, whose names he didn’t know, at the pub that day investigating a possible assault.
Lamarre-Condon was looking at the venue’s CCTV to see if it captured anyone doing an intentional or unintentional “shoulder charge”, when he saw Baird enter the premises on the screen.
“I remember filming from my camera,” the former officer told the court.
“I did send it to Jesse then made a joking banter of it [like] ‘I didn’t get to see you, but detective Beau’s on the case’, and sent it to him.”
Hatfield alleged this was a “deliberately false explanation” but Lamarre-Condon disagreed.
Earlier, Lamarre-Condon was shown screenshots he had taken of Baird’s Instagram story after their breakup in April 2023, before Hatfield asked: “Were you stalking Jesse online and in person in this period in May and June 2023?”
Lamarre-Condon responded: “Mr Crown, if you’re going to accuse me of stalking you’re going to have to show my phone records of where I was on these dates.”
“I definitely wasn’t stalking him, I was looking online,” he told the NSW supreme court.
Lamarre-Condon repeatedly said he was the one who had initiated the split, and told the jury this first breakup with Baird was “amicable”.
“We always followed each other,” he told the court. “That’s not stalking. Am I looking at what he posts? Am I a follower? Yes.”
But the court heard he was still upset about the breakup.
“Jesse and I had good times together,” he said. “I did miss that and I miss him as a friend as well, not just as a sexual partner.”
After the split, Lamarre-Condon went to Baird’s home to retrieve his belongings, he told the court.
The former officer claimed he had sent a message that day to ask whether he was going to be home but said: “As I was arriving, he was leaving. I did not ask permission there and then.”
Lamarre-Condon used a key which had been left out to get his clothes, a Polaroid camera and ate an Easter egg he had bought Baird.
“I didn’t steal the Polaroid camera, I purchased that with my money for us to use … that’s not stealing,” he said.
The crown prosecutor referred to previous evidence from Lamarre-Condon’s friend Georgia Cook, who said the former officer told her had been travelling to Baird’s house in his mum’s car and watching the 26-year-old before stealing the camera and consuming the egg.
Lamarre-Condon claimed she had added her own “salt and pepper” to the account.
On Tuesday morning, former officer told the jury about the early days of the relationship, saying he had met up with Baird in October and November 2022 for sexual encounters before the pair began going on romantic dates in December of that year.
Hatfield asked Lamarre-Condon: “You were obsessed with him right from the start?”
Lamarre-Condon denied this, telling the jury: “Jesse Baird could have been a garbage cleaner … I liked Jesse for who he was as a person.”
Hatfield then asked if Lamarre-Condon was “obsessed” with Baird in February and March 2023, the accused responded: “I don’t agree with ‘obsessed’. Smitten? Yes. Obsessed? No.”
View image in fullscreenLuke Davies and Jesse Baird. Composite: NSW supreme courtHatfield pointed to messages between Lamarre-Condon and his friends sent around the time the pair began going on dates, in which the officer says: “it sounds crazy, I love him.”
Lamarre-Condon responded: “I say ‘I love you’ to all my friends and to people like that all the time.”
Asked whether he was insecure about the relationship and whether Baird liked him, Lamarre-Condon said his response was “natural” and sometimes occurred when the TV presenter did not reply to his messages straight away.
“I would always joke [with my friends], ‘We’re white girl crazy’,” Lamarre-Condon told the jury.
“It means we should stop being in our head and second-guessing ourselves.”
Lamarre-Condon told the court he had looked through Baird’s phone and used it to unfollow people when the pair went on a brief holiday to a cabin in regional NSW.
“In relation to breaching his privacy and, yes, his trust, I did unfollow two to three people,” he said. “I believe curiosity just got the best of me.
“Our relationship was progressing, I just kind of wanted to see where he was at … if he was also messaging other guys romantically … I’m not making excuses for my behaviour.”
Later, when the prosecution attempted to go through messages between Lamarre-Condon and one of his friends, the officer directly addressed Hatfield, telling him: “Mr Crown, I think you’re trying to mislead me here.”
Justice Natalie Adams interjected, directing Lamarre-Condon to “just answer the question”.
“If the crown is misleading you, [the defence lawyer] will object,” she said.
Fox Style News Syndicate. Sourced from broadcast reporting: Read Full Source Coverage.