Beau Lamarre-Condon trial live updates: Former NSW Police officer denies stalking Jesse Baird, breaking into Paddington home as double murder trial continues

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of Beau Lamarre-Condon’s double murder trial in the NSW Supreme Court in Sydney.

The former NSW police officer returns to the witness box today to face further cross-examination by Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield, SC.

The 31-year-old has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder over the deaths of Jesse Baird, 26, a former TV presenter, and Luke Davies, 29, a Qantas flight attendant. His case is that he acted in self-defence, the 15-person jury has been told.

He has given the following evidence in cross-examination:

• Lamarre-Condon denied stalking Baird in 2023 after their first break-up in April that year. The men had met in Sydney in October 2022, the court has heard, and their relationship was non-exclusive, but the accused said they started going on “romantic dates” in December that year.
• He rejected a suggestion by the prosecution on Tuesday that he was obsessed with Baird “right from the start”. “Smitten, yes. Obsessed, no,” the accused said.
• The court has heard the men resumed contact briefly around August or September 2023, after their first break-up, before Baird ended the relationship permanently in November 2023. Lamarre-Condon admitted he invaded Baird’s privacy and went through his phone on two occasions in March and April 2023.
• He denied that he had broken into Baird’s home on August 17, 2023, after the TV presenter responded to a text message he sent but did not engage with his suggestion of a catch-up. He said that Baird “did invite me to stay the night” later that day, and he used a key left out for him.
• The court has heard Baird woke to a man he did not recognise standing over his bed and chased him out of the home. He reported the alleged break-in and theft of his phone and wallet to the police. Lamarre-Condon has said he was trying to look through Baird’s phone and put a bobby pin in the lock so that if Baird woke up he wouldn’t think it was him.
• The court has heard that police found CCTV footage on Lamarre-Condon’s iCloud account of Baird on a date with another man at the Royal Hotel in Paddington on May 19, 2023. He denied he was stalking Baird and misusing his authority as a police officer to access CCTV of him.
• The accused said last week that he came across the footage while helping police colleagues with official duties, following a potential assault nearby. Baird had invited him to “swing by” the hotel in uniform while he was working, he said.
• He rejected Hatfield’s suggestion that it appealed to him that Baird was a TV presenter. “Jesse Baird could have been a garbage cleaner,” he said. “We actually never really talked much about his work. I wasn’t really interested in that, to be honest.”
• He also denied that he had misrepresented the nature of his relationship with Baird in a video he made of them on a farm stay holiday in March 2023.

Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732), the Men’s Referral Service on 1300 766 491, and Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Justice Natalie Adams has sent the jury home for the day. They will return at 10am.

Here’s what the judge told the 15-person jury.

Members of the jury … an issue has arisen unexpectedly. These things happen in trials all the time, as you’ve probably learned by now, but it’s going to take more time to resolve than was initially anticipated.

What I’m going to do is send you home for the day and court will resume at 10 o’clock tomorrow for Mr Lamarre-Condon to either finish or conclude his evidence.

The court break has been extended slightly until about 12.30pm.

Here are the key parts of the evidence this morning:

• Lamarre-Condon has denied stalking Jesse Baird, including when he saw the then TV presenter having sex with another man while standing outside his bedroom window.
• He has said he was there to pick up some of his belongings after their first break-up in April 2023 and that he left almost immediately when he saw Baird through the sheer curtains with the other man.
• He has denied breaking into Baird’s home on August 17, 2023. The court has heard he messaged one friend in the aftermath that Baird had “a home invasion”. He said that he panicked and ran out of Baird’s home with his phone and wallet after Baird woke up while he was attempting to take the phone outside to go through his messages.
• The accused has told the court he entered the home using a key that Baird left out for him that night, but put a bobby pin in the lock of the door to give the impression someone else had been in the house in case Baird woke up while he was looking through the phone outside.
• After being shown a screenshot of a text message he sent Baird on the day of the alleged break-in, in which he wrote, “Haha I’ll take that as a no to doing the catch up then”, Lamarre-Condon said he communicated with Baird on other platforms including FaceTime and social media.
• He agreed that a friend had called him “Bobby P” in a joke referring to him putting the bobby pin in the door.

The court is taking a short break for morning tea. The hearing resumes at midday.

During cross-examination this morning, Lamarre-Condon responded to one question by the Crown prosecutor by saying: “You seem to be a bit confused.”

Justice Natalie Adams said to the accused: “Please don’t comment on what the Crown might be thinking or doing.” She told him to answer the questions.

Lamarre-Condon is shown a message another friend sent him on September 2, 2023, which said: “Love you Bobby P xxx.”

He agreed that this was a joke about the fact that he had put a bobby pin in Baird’s front door lock on August 17, 2023, the night that he has denied breaking into the then TV presenter’s home.

He has told the court he used a key Baird had left out for him but put the bobby pin in the lock in case Baird woke up while he was going through his phone outside, to give the impression somebody else had come into the house.

Lamarre-Condon is being asked about his evidence that he did not break into Baird’s home on August 17, 2023, and had been invited to stay the night by the TV presenter.

He has pleaded not guilty to aggravated break and enter and stealing Baird’s phone and wallet.

Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield, SC, shows the accused a screenshot of a text message he had sent Baird the same day: “Haha I’ll take that as a no to doing the catch up then.” It was followed by a crying laughing emoji and smiley face emoji.

The court hears he sent that screenshot to his friend on August 18, 2023, the day after the alleged break-in.

Hatfield put to him that his account of being invited to Baird’s house was “completely false”.

Lamarre-Condon disagreed and said he communicated with Baird on a number of platforms including via Instagram, social media, FaceTime and text messages.

Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield, SC, asks Lamarre-Condon if he made a fake hotmail address for a man Baird had been seeing.

“You don’t recall making a fake hotmail account for [the man]?” Hatfield said.

“No, I don’t remember. I can’t remember that,” the accused said.

He has previously said he tried putting the man’s email address into the dating app Grindr to see if he already had an account, as he believed this would be a way of checking if Baird and the man were in an exclusive relationship.

Asked if he made a fake email address or Grindr account for Baird, Lamarre-Condon said he did not.