Full Gerard Baden-Clay judgment

THE decision to downgrade Gerard Baden-Clay’s murder conviction to manslaughter shocked those in court listening to it, including his deceased wife Allison’s family. Here’s what the judgment detailing the decision said.

THE decision to downgrade Gerard Baden-Clay’s murder conviction to manslaughter shocked those in court listening to the decision this morning.

The judgment by Chief Justice Catherine Holmes, Justice Hugh Fraser and Justice Robert Gotterson was delivered four months after the former real estate agent argued his murder conviction was unreasonable, and could see him released in as little as four years.

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He could also still appeal against his manslaughter conviction to the High Court, as he is yet to admit any involvement in his wife’s death.

The Court of Appeal’s written judgment says despite Gerard’s continuous denials of any involvement there may have been an argument between the couple.

“There remained in this case a reasonable hypothesis consistent with innocence of murder: that there was a physical confrontation between the appellant and his wife in which he delivered a blow which killed her (for example by the effects of a fall hitting her head against a hard surface),” the decision reads.

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“And, in a state of panic and knowing that he had unlawfully killed her, he took her body to Kholo Creek in the hope that it would be washed away, while lying about the causes of the marks on his face which suggested conflict.

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“Smothering, the Crown’s thesis, was a reasonable possibility, but while there was also another reasonable possibility available on the evidence, the jury could not properly have been satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the element of intent to kill or do grievous bodily harm has been proved.

“In consequence, the appeal against conviction must be allowed, the verdict of guilty of murder set aside and a verdict of manslaughter substituted.”