Beau Lamarre-Condon has pleaded not guilty to murdering Jesse Baird and his new partner Luke Davies. Photograph: Rocco Fazzari/AAPView image in fullscreenBeau Lamarre-Condon has pleaded not guilty to murdering Jesse Baird and his new partner Luke Davies. Photograph: Rocco Fazzari/AAP‘If I wanted to plan a murder’: Beau Lamarre-Condon tells court what he would have doneFormer police officer tells court ‘it was never a plan to murder anybody’ as prosecution repeatedly suggests to him he planned to kill Jesse Baird
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Beau Lamarre-Condon has told a Sydney court he never planned to murder anybody and if he did, he reiterated he would use stolen vehicles and a gun not linked to him.
But the prosecutor responded: “No one’s saying it was a good plan, that’s why you’re sitting here.”
The former police officer is accused of fatally shooting Jesse 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.
Sat in the witness box for the seventh day, Lamarre-Condon was asked about driving his mother to pick up a hire car under her name on the evening before the alleged murders.
As part of his cross-examination, crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield SC repeatedly suggested to Lamarre-Condon that he was planning to murder Baird.
But the accused told the New South Wales supreme court on Friday “it was never a plan to murder anybody”.
“You wouldn’t bring a vehicle linked to your mum for a murder,” Lamarre-Condon told the jury.
“If I wanted to a plan a murder I would have two stolen vehicles ready to go, I would have a gun that’s not linked to me. I know exactly how to do it, I work with youth gangs.”
Hatfield told Lamarre-Condon: “No one’s saying it was a good plan that’s why you’re sitting here, isn’t it?”
The former officer maintained he and his mother spoke in the car about his suicidal ideation and he had turned off his phone because he did not want to talk about work or personal things in the vicinity of the device.
Earlier on Friday, Lamarre-Condon was asked about purchasing a sim card under the name “Bob Ballard” on 15 January 2024, about a month before the shootings.
He told the jury in his double murder trial it had “nothing to do with Jesse Baird”.
He was attempting to compile statements about “bullying from a certain sergeant” but was worried about speaking publicly on the issue, Lamarre-Condon said.
“I was wanting to go and compile all these statements and go to the media,” he said.
“I didn’t want to communicate at all from my phone because you can become a target … there would be repercussions.”
Under cross-examination by Hatfield, Lamarre-Condon agreed he was using the new sim card to contact former and current officers.
But asked why his phone records showed he only contacted one police officer on this sim, Lamarre-Condon said it only revealed his normal phone calls, telling the court: “You can’t see what I did on Signal.”
The prosecutor said he could have used encrypted messaging app Signal on his normal phone, but Lamarre-Condon claimed police could make him unlock his own device and view his Signal records if he was investigated for talking to the media.
Hatfield also questioned why Lamarre-Condon had Davies’s contact details on his phone.
The former officer claimed Davies’s details were on his Instagram.
“I went and blocked numerous Instagram [accounts] from my own Instagram because of this incident,” he said, referring to the shootings.
“I even blocked Jesse’s family members from my account. I didn’t want any of that.”
He deactivated his social media accounts soon after.
The trial before Justice Natalie Adams continues.
Fox Style News Syndicate. Sourced from broadcast reporting: Read Full Source Coverage.