The case against alleged double murderer Beau Lamarre-Condon faces significant delays due to a change in legal representation at a stage that a magistrate described as “regrettable”.
Former police officer Lamarre-Condon is accused of shooting former Channel Ten presenter and AFL umpire Jesse Baird and his Qantas flight attendant boyfriend Luke Davies with his police-issued pistol on February 19.
Former police officer Beau Lamarre-Condon (centre) is accused of killing Luke Davies (left) and Jesse Baird (right).
Police allege the then-senior constable killed the couple at Baird’s Paddington home before dumping their bodies in surfboard bags near the town of Bungonia, south of Goulburn.
The 28-year-old has been in custody since handing himself into police several days after the deaths.
In October, Lamarre-Condon’s former lawyer, John Walford, said he was in the “last throes” of finalising instructions regarding a plea.
He said there would be a committal on the next court appearance, meaning his client was due to either admit to or vow to defend the murder allegations this week.
Beau Lamarre-Condon (top left), and former Ten presenter Jesse Baird, 26, and Qantas flight attendant Luke Davies, 29.
But at Downing Centre Local Court on Tuesday morning, Walford was granted leave to withdraw representation.
Lamarre-Condon appeared briefly via audiovisual link from Silverwater Prison, wearing his prison greens and speaking only to say “thanks” to Magistrate Clare Farnan when she said the court was not yet ready to resume his case.
Once the court organised one of the victim’s families to dial in via audiovisual link, a Legal Aid solicitor said she was now appearing in the matter. Seeking a two-week adjournment, she said her team had recently received the majority of the brief of evidence, which included two USBs and external hard drives.
Farnan pressed the solicitor on the need for an adjournment. She responded that a forensic psychiatrist indicated they could assess Lamarre-Condon early next year.
Crown prosecutor Brendan Donnelly said the defence team initially wanted to adjourn the case until March, which the Crown opposed and asked for further evidence as to why a psychiatrist was not available earlier.
Farnan said it was regrettable that legal representation had changed at this stage of proceedings, telling the Legal Aid lawyer she was “surely aware this matter needs to be moved along”.
In August, Lamarre-Condon’s initial two murder charges were formally replaced with two domestic violence murder charges.
A fresh count of aggravated breaking and entering with intent to commit a serious indictable offence was also formalised.
Police allege Lamarre-Condon broke into Baird’s Brown Street share house six months before the alleged killings, intending to commit the serious indictable offence of “stalking Jesse Baird”.
Baird allegedly complained to friends about seeing a shadowy figure at the foot of his bed in the months before his death.
Lamarre-Condon is accused of killing Baird because he was obsessed with him and shooting Davies as collateral damage for being at the house at the time.
Lamarre-Condon was fired from the NSW Police Force in March.
He has not pleaded to the charges and will next face court on November 19.