Beau Lamarre-Condon denies stalking Jesse Baird as double murder trial continues

Beau Lamarre-Condon has denied being “obsessed” with Jesse Baird from the start of their relationship, telling a court he would have liked the TV presenter even if he was “a garbage cleaner”.

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 grilled by crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield SC about his relationship with Baird.

The former officer told the New South Wales supreme court he would meet up with Baird in October and November 2022 for sexual encounters before the pair began going on romantic dates in December of that year.

Under cross-examination on Tuesday, Hatfield asked Lamarre-Condon: “You were obsessed with him right from the start?”

Lamarre-Condon denied this, telling the jury: “I never cared about showing Jesse off. I wanted Jesse to meet my friends because I thought he was genuine.

“Jesse Baird could have been a garbage cleaner … I liked Jesse for who he was as a person.”

Asked by Hatfield 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.”

Hatfield pointed to messages between Lamarre-Condon and his friends sent around the time the pair began going on dates, where 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.

“That’s different to saying I’m ‘in’ love with him,” he said.

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.”

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He told the court he would make jokes and have “banter” with his female friends, not his heterosexual male friends, telling each other things like: “You’re a crazy bitch.”

Lamarre-Condon told the court he had looked through Baird’s phone, using 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, telling Lamarre-Condon to “just answer the question”.

“If the crown is misleading you, [the defence lawyer] will object,” she said.

The trial continues.

In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123. In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org