source : the age
Accused double murderer Beau Lamarre-Condon attended police training at a pistol range a month before he allegedly killed Sydney couple Jesse Baird and Luke Davies, a court has heard.
The former NSW police officer is standing trial in the Supreme Court on two counts of murder over the shooting deaths of Jesse Baird, 26, and Luke Davies, 29, in Paddington on February 19, 2024. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
On Tuesday the 15-person jury heard evidence from NSW Police Senior Sergeant James Woodbury, co-ordinator of the weapons and defensive tactics training unit. Lamarre-Condon attended training at the Blacktown Pistol Club with 10 colleagues on January 17, 2024, the court heard.
“The live-fire training program typically consists of a number of practice sequences,” Woodbury said.
This generally included participants shooting at multiple targets, shooting very close to a target and from further away, reloading their pistol and fixing any stoppages, he said.
A sign-in sheet showed participant number two at the training was “Beau Lamarre” but Woodbury was not personally in attendance on January 17, the court heard.
The prosecution case is that Lamarre-Condon planned to kill Baird, a former Network Ten producer and presenter, after developing an “obsessive and jealous infatuation” with him that escalated when Baird ended their casual relationship in November 2023.
The accused allegedly used his police-issued Glock pistol to shoot both men in Baird’s Paddington share house on the morning of February 19, and cleaned the home while Baird’s flatmates were out.
The prosecution alleges Lamarre-Condon killed Davies, a Qantas flight attendant and Baird’s new boyfriend, to eliminate a witness to his crime.
There is no dispute that Lamarre-Condon was at the terrace when Baird and Davies died, that they died of gunshot wounds from his police-issued pistol, and that he was disguised as a delivery rider. There is also no dispute that he disposed of their bodies in surfboard bags.
However, the defence case is that Lamarre-Condon went to the Paddington home to pick up some of his belongings and did not expect anybody to be there. A struggle ensued in which his gun accidentally went off twice, killing Baird, and Davies accidentally shot himself in a second struggle, the defence says.
The accused’s barrister, John Stratton, SC, told the jury that Lamarre-Condon had his gun with him because he had been trained not to leave it unattended in his vehicle. However, the Crown case is that he should not have been carrying the weapon because he was not rostered on to work.
Stratton said in his opening address to the court that Lamarre-Condon dumped the bodies because he “panicked considerably”.
“[He] knew the gravity of the situation that he was in and how it might be perceived and was overawed by it,” he said.
The trial continues.
