Legal move to keep Gerard Baden-Clay’s hands off Allison’s estate

GERARD Baden-Clay’s guilt over the murder of his wife Allison is now set in stone, but her family need one more legal measure to have closure.

Gerard Baden-Clay’s murder conviction was reinstated by the High Court last year.

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A COURT has been asked to formally declare Gerard Baden-Clay has no right to more than $1 million from his murdered wife Allison’s life insurance and superannuation policies.

The notorious former real estate agent stood to reap the major windfall from his wife’s death as the sole beneficiary in her will.

But Allison’s father Geoff Dickie has asked the Supreme Court to declare Gerard “is not entitled to obtain or receive any benefit… from the death”.

If the court application succeeds, Mr Dickie will be appointed executor and Allison’s estate will go to the couple’s three daughters.

A senior lawyer told The Courier-Mail the application was a formality and Baden-Clay would “not get a cent” after being convicted of murdering his wife at their Brookfield home in April 2012.

Allison’s will was signed a day before the couple’s ill-fated marriage on August 23, 1997.

It left her entire estate to Gerard if he was alive, otherwise it was to be divided equally between their children. The couple’s daughters are now 15, 13 and 10.

Mr Dickie told the court in documents filed last week that the estate holds $236,505 from an IOOF superannuation account which had an added “crisis care” insurance policy.

The estate was also entitled to but had not yet been paid, $434,069 from a TAL life insurance policy and $348,497 from a Suncorp life insurance policy.

The TAL and Suncorp policies have already been paid out but the money was put in a trust until criminal proceedings, including appeals, were over.

Baden-Clay’s trial was told he was under severe financial stress and involved in a long-running affair — with his wife and mistress to meet the next day — when Allison vanished from their home.

Her body was found 10 days later on a creek bank 14km away.

Allison Baden-Clay’s parents Priscilla and Geoff Dickie.

Despite the huge financial benefit to Baden-Clay, prosecutors did not cite Allison’s insurance policies as a factor in the murder.

Baden-Clay was named as the executor in his wife’s will. However Mr Dickie has asked the court for full control so he can “finalise affairs of the estate”.

“Gerard is disqualified from acting as the executor of the estate because he has been convicted of murdering her,” Mr Dickie wrote in documents viewed by The Courier-Mail.

A document renouncing any right to be executor was signed by Baden-Clay at Wolston Correctional Centre at Wacol in December and has been filed in court.

Baden-Clay’s appeal rights are exhausted after the High Court reinstated his murder conviction last August.