Hannah Clarke inquest: ‘Narcissist’ killer planted hidden recording device in Hannah’s home
A friend of Hannah Clarke’s estranged husband has told the inquest into her death alongside her three children how he left a hidden recording device at her home, overhearing conversations she had with her mother where they called him a narcissist and other derogatory names.
Police & Courts
Don't miss out on the headlines from Police & Courts. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Hannah Clarke’s home was bugged by her killer ex Rowan Baxter, people who interacted with him in the months leading up to the horrific Camp Hill murders have revealed.
On day three of the inquest into the deaths of Hannah Clarke and her three children Trey, Aaliyah and Laianah, the former couple’s friends and acquaintances revealed ‘bubbly’ Hannah knew something was going to happen to her and Baxter put a hidden recording device at her home.
Eoin Coffey, a friend of Baxter’s, told the inquest via a statement ‘Baxter left a tape recording device, an old iPad, recording’.
“He then overheard Hannah talking to her mother, where they called him a narcissist and other derogatory names,” she said.
Hannah’s former boss Lewis Bartlett, who owned and managed an Athlete’s Foot store, said Hannah asked for more shifts to get a break from her troubled home life and after she left Baxter she asked her boss how to write a will to make sure her children were taken care of if she died.
“She was convinced something was going to happen to her,” Mr Bartlett said.
“I think she knew there was some sort of battle (ahead) there.”
The evidence is among several witnesses called to the inquest.
Scroll down to read all the evidence.
BAXTER’S HIDDEN RECORDING DEVICE AT HANNAH’S HOME
Counsel assisting the coroner, Dr Jacoba Brasch, told the inquest a friend of Baxter’s, Eoin Coffey, could not give evidence in person but had provided a statement.
She said among the information in Mr Coffey’s statement was his recollection of speaking to Baxter about him leaving a hidden recording device at Hannah’s home.
“Baxter left a tape recording device, an old iPad, recording,” she said.
“He then overheard Hannah talking to her mother, where they called him a narcissist and other derogatory names.”
Mr Coffey, a lawyer, said in his statement that he’d told Baxter he needed to respect the temporary protection order and that any breach of it would “not look good in the family court”.
‘BUBBLY’ HANNAH CONVINCED SOMETHING WAS GOING TO HAPPEN TO HER
Lewis Bartlett owned and managed the Athlete’s Foot store where Hannah began working in about 2009 and they became friends.
He said in about August or September of 2019, Hannah asked if she could take on more hours in the store.
While she first said it was because the kids were now older she wanted to work more, she later began opening up more about her real intentions.
“Once she’d come back to work she said she wanted some time away from home and some space to herself,” Mr Bartlett said.
“Almost (to have) a break at work and have time to herself at work.”
Asked how he would describe Hannah, Mr Bartlett said she was “very bubbly”.
“Probably one of the happiest bubbliest people you’ll ever meet,” he said.
“Even going through her traumas you’d never know, she’d always turn up to work happy and bubbly.”
He said in about November or December 2019, Hannah revealed she was thinking of leaving Rowan and wanted Mr Bartlett to know in case she needed time off.
“I was shocked at the time because on the surface they looked like a happy couple,” he said.
“They were both very active on social media.”
Mr Bartlett said he asked if Hannah was okay and whether Baxter had ever hit her. She said he hadn’t but “did other things”.
“At first she said she needed some space, she felt being smothered and just needed some time,” he said.
“But as conversations went on over coming weeks she said to me one day her relationship was classed as a domestic violence relationship.”
Mr Bartlett agreed that Hannah had come to realise that she was in a domestic violence relationship.
“She had mentioned to me that she’d spoken to a friend who’d been through a similar scenario,” he said.
“From that she’d realised it was time to get out.
“She couldn’t do anything without his permission I guess.”
He said he heard her tell a colleague that Baxter would not let her wear shorts in public.
Hannah also told him that Baxter had “poked fun” at her belly “not being as good as it used to be” after having children.
Mr Bartlett said Baxter called him on one occasion to request Hannah have the weekend off for their wedding anniversary.
He said Baxter did not know he knew they were having problems.
He said Hannah later called him and pleaded with him to not give her the time off because she didn’t want to go on a trip he had planned.
“She ended up going,” he said.
Mr Bartlett said on another occasion, Baxter turned up at the store and started putting stock away out the back.
He said Hannah had to go out the back and ask him to leave.
“It was strange that he was putting away the stock,” Mr Bartlett said, adding that Baxter was trying to play the “nice guy”.
“Now looking back, he would come in most shifts, normally around lunchtime,” he said.
“Sometimes he would bring food in or keys … looking back I think he was probably there for other reasons.
“Keeping an eye on Hannah, seeing who else was working.”
Mr Bartlett said by late November, when Hannah confessed their relationship troubles, he realised why Baxter visited the store so often.
He said Hannah began saying she would leave Baxter but then wouldn’t.
“(She’d say) next Tuesday I’m going to leave, I’m going to do it,” he said.
“One week (it was) Trey’s birthday. She didn’t want to do it around that time.”
He said she said it for a number of weeks “until eventually she did (leave)”.
Mr Bartlett said Baxter was jealous of anyone else who had success or money.
He recalled when he bought his first house, instead of saying congratulations, Baxter was annoyed and made a negative comment about people younger than him having bought a house when he had not.
He said after Hannah left Baxter, she gave Mr Bartlett her new phone number.
“She was convinced that Rowan had either tapped her phone or was listening to her phone conversations,” Mr Bartlett said.
She told him she’d had conversations with other people that Baxter knew details of and the only way he could have known was if he was listening.
Despite her struggles, Mr Bartlett said Hannah was “still bubbly” but a bit more serious than usual.
“Nobody else would have any idea what she was going through at all,” he said.
He revealed in late December or early January, Hannah had asked him how to write a will, saying she wanted to make sure her children were taken care of if she died.
“She was convinced something was going to happen to her,” Mr Bartlett said.
“I think she knew there was some sort of battle (ahead) there.”
One of the last times Mr Bartlett saw Hannah in the beginning of February, she asked for him to call store security if Baxter came in.
She revealed Baxter had been stalking her around the shopping centre and there was security footage of that.
Mr Bartlett said around that time, Hannah went to the police about Baxter.
He said a female police officer would come into the store or walk by the store to make sure she was OK.
He said in late December, she missed a shift because Baxter had abducted Laianah.
He said she was “definitely” distressed and had been trying to contact Baxter.
Mr Bartlett said Hannah told him in January that Baxter was following her, particularly around Westfield Carindale.
Hannah also told him about Baxter dropping off the children after putting photographs of her in her underwear through the back of the car.
“Hannah came to work one day and her arm was quite red and she said that Rowan had grabbed her and assaulted her,” he said.
He said Hannah had gone to grab the photographs and Rowan had grabbed her.
“That’s when Rowan grabbed her by the arm and held her up against the car,” Mr Bartlett said.
“They (the children) would have already seen them, I would have guessed.”
Mr Bartlett said he asked Hannah outright if she was scared Baxter would harm her.
“She didn’t think he would ever harm the kids but she did say he would use the kids against her as a bargaining chip,” he said.
He said Hannah told him she thought Baxter would kill her.
“I said have you told the police this and she said yes,” Mr Bartlett said.
“I said look, whatever we can do to help you out, we are here to help.
“I thought, OK, at least the police know, there must be something to put in place here to protect her.”
By January, she told him she needed a Will to protect her children in case he killed her.
‘QUITE CONTROLLING’: PASTOR SAYS HANNAH, ROWAN COMPETITIVE IN GYM
Christopher Ensbey was a pastor at the Citipointe Church at Carindale when he joined the Integrate Gym owned by Hannah and Baxter.
“I met Rowan first and then Hannah was also leading the classes and the kids were always there as well, so when you join the gym you meet the whole family,” he said.
Asked to describe the family, Mr Ensbey said both Hannah and Baxter were “very competitive” in the gym which was more competitive than social.
“Both very competitive people, full of life, full of fun,” he said.
“At that stage you could tell the type of person Rowan was.
“He was quite controlling and driven but their relational dynamic was nothing out of the ordinary.”
Mr Ensbey said their three children were beautiful kids.
“Lovely children, amazing, full of life, the picture (on screen in court) captures it very well,” he said.
“(They were) extremely active, they could do things in the gym a lot of adults couldn’t do, great kids.”
Mr Ensbey said Baxter called him randomly some time after the gym moved.
He said Baxter had told him his father had been religious but “not in a good way”.
“He wasn’t doing well in himself and was trying to reconcile and become whole in some way,” he said.
He agreed it was a strange call, out of the blue, on November 10, 2019.
“It was to organise a catch up in person. He pretty much said he wasn’t doing well,” Mr Ensbey said.
“It was around his marriage. He only wanted to change what needed to be changed in order to keep his marriage the way it was.
“What ticked boxes do I do to keep my life the way it is.
“When he was talking to me, I didn’t know they were separated at all. I thought they were still living together.”
He said Baxter came to the church on November 11, the day after the call.
“There was genuine remorse there for something,” he said, explaining he did not know whether it was over his own actions or his predicament.
He said Baxter cried on his shoulder and they shared a coffee and talked.
“Looking back I would not say he was remorseful genuinely for his actions and control, I’d say he was remorseful for the fact he’s lost his home life,” Mr Ensbey said.
“I’d say he’s almost mourning that than being remorseful of his own actions.”
Mr Ensbey said he got the impression Baxter was more concerned about how the situation impacted himself.
“I think he knew that something was wrong and he had to change but he didn’t have the self-awareness to know what that was,” he said.
“At this point I don’t think he was desperate enough to make that change either, he just wanted to go back to the way it was.”
Mr Ensbey said when Baxter hugged him and broke down, he thought it was odd to see him being vulnerable because he always needed to be “the alpha male”.
“All through his gym life if even a gym member was as good at him at the gym there’d be a conflict there,” he said.
“That’s how competitive he was.”
He said Baxter would push people so hard at the gym that they would vomit.
“I remember one occasion where he accused me of shaving my reps when I beat him in a workout and he said no you’ve been cheating,” Mr Ensbey said.
“He thought someone had to cheat in order to beat him.”
Mr Ensbey said he didn’t recall any members leaving the gym because of Baxter’s “competitive and aggressive nature”.
Mr Ensbey said when Baxter hugged him and broke down, he thought it was odd to see him being vulnerable because he always needed to be “the alpha male”.
“All through his gym life if even a gym member was as good at him at the gym there’d be a conflict there,” he said.
“That’s how competitive he was.”
He said Baxter would push people so hard at the gym that they would vomit.
“I remember one occasion where he accused me of shaving my reps when I beat him in a workout and he said no you’ve been cheating,” Mr Ensbey said.
“He thought someone had to cheat in order to beat him.”
Mr Ensbey said he didn’t recall any members leaving the gym because of Baxter’s “competitive and aggressive nature”.
Mr Ensbey said Baxter admitted to being controlling.
“He pretty much said … I don’t give her what she wants, I just do what I want,” he said.
“I said to him very early on that I’m not a counsellor, I can’t reconcile your marriage but I can help you get whole if you want to.”
He said Baxter told him he had been cheated on in the past and he believed Baxter used that as a reason for how “tight” he held on to Hannah.
He said Baxter described himself as a “bad” husband.
“When Hannah needed a morning off taking a gym class in the morning and they were both feeling bad, he would still make her do it,” Mr Ensbey said.
“I hadn’t seen him or heard from him for a long … I was trying to figure out who this person was in front of me.”
Mr Ensbey said he and Baxter met a second time at the Rochedale markets on November 15.
“He said he’d been putting in effort to be less controlling … again I don’t think it was a genuine effort,” he said.
“Trying to be less controlling was in itself a mechanism of control.”
He said he discovered that although Baxter was “extremely controlling” of Hannah, he was also “extremely dependant” on her.
“I remember I bought him a burger there because he didn’t have money or Hannah hadn’t transferred him money,” Mr Ensbey said.
“He didn’t know how to operate his bank accounts.”
Mr Ensbey said he recommended Baxter go see a counsellor which he said he would do but the “catch” was he wanted Hannah to go with him.
“I think he wanted to get them back together rather than he himself change,” he said.
“That was always his blatant and obvious goal.”
They met on December 6 and Baxter brought with him a letter from Hannah in which she asked for a temporary separation, saying “I need space”.
“He was very upset, there were a lot of tears, he kept saying how much he loved his family and they were everything to him,” Mr Ensbey said.
He gave evidence Baxter kept talking about going to Hannah’s parents’ house where she was staying but he urged him not to and to respect her space.
“He wanted to call her in that moment while I was there,” Mr Ensbey said.
“It was almost like he was looking for somebody else to tell her she should come back to him.”
Mr Ensbey said Baxter claimed things had been getting better at home and he thought he was making ground with improving the relationship.
“He was just changing to get what he wants,” he said.
“I think a genuine change from the heart produces a lasting behaviour.
“He was just producing a temporary change to get what he wants.”
Mr Ensbey said he took everything Baxter said with a grain of salt.
He said he received a text from Hannah in early December 2019, having had no contact with her since visiting the gym in 2018.
He said they then spoke on the phone.
“With Hannah I got to see through the curtain and see how she was,” he said.
“(Baxter) was getting more and more paranoid with her communications and her time spent.”
Mr Ensbey said he asked Hannah if there was any abuse in their relationship.
She told him no, there was nothing physical, but that she felt controlled in other ways – including with sex.
“She was very calm on the phone and that was always kind of Hannah anyway. She said no, he’s never been abusive, he’s never raised his voice to me,” he said.
Mr Ensbey said when he spoke to Hannah on December 7, she had already left Baxter and had moved out.
“I think the pressure to have sex every day was a significant one,” he said of his conversation with her.
He agreed he later became aware that Baxter had put his hands around Hannah’s throat.
He said Baxter had hidden that from him.
Mr Ensbey said Baxter had spoken to him about whether he should go, unannounced, to the Clarke family home where Hannah was staying.
He said he did not encourage that and Baxter did not tell him he had done it.
‘BIT OF A HOTHEAD’: FORMER TEAMMATE TELLS HOW BAXTER GOT INTO FIGHTS
Brad Clark first met Baxter in New Zealand in 2003 when they played on the same rugby teams.
Asked what Baxter was like on the football field, he described him as a “bit of a hothead” who would get into fights.
“He was known in the competition as someone who was short tempered,” Mr Clark said.
“He was a pretty aggressive rugby player, quite a good quality rugby player as well though.”
Mr Clark said the pair weren’t friends off the field but became friendly years later when he moved to Brisbane and they exchanged phone numbers after running into each other at a shop.
He said Baxter had a child and was married to his first wife at the time and that he came to know Hannah when she and Baxter worked at a PCYC gym together.
Mr Clark said Hannah was around a lot and he ended up employing her at his shoe store.
He said a short time later, Hannah and Baxter entered a ‘honeymoon period’ early in their relationship where they would regularly travel and go to the beach.
Mr Clark said Baxter had still been living with his first wife and son and that she kicked Baxter out when she “caught them out”.
Mr Clark told the court he was later a guest at Hannah and Baxter’s wedding at Kingscliff.
Mr Clark said at some point, Baxter came to him and asked him to invest in a gym.
“I had other plans of my own that I was pursuing,” he said.
He said Baxter had assumed he would hand over the money and was “pretty annoyed” when he refused to invest.
He said Baxter continued to ask him and his refusals affected their friendship.
“Our relationship slowed down or stopped at that point,” Mr Clark said.
Mr Clark said earlier, in 2012, he had employed Baxter at his Athletes Foot store.
“That’s the kind of guy … he would just push and push until he got the answer he wanted,” he said.
Mr Clark said Baxter would take advantage of people and “burnt a lot of bridges” with people and business associates.
“He didn’t listen to advice from others,” he said, adding that Baxter was highly critical of how friends ran their businesses.
“We’d offer products to Rowan and give him shoes and things but he would come and be very judgmental of what my employees looked like, how they spoke, how they spoke to customers, how they spoke to him.
“Even the type of products I was ordering … he would be very critical.
“We would change what we would get in to suit him.”
Mr Clark said he thought it a good marketing strategy to provide shoes to personal trainers like Baxter.
“He would constantly bring them back, I guess expecting the next pair and the next pair without any financial payment or anything,” he said.
Mr Clark said at that time, he noticed Baxter played a “dominating” role in his relationship with Hannah.
He said any ideas Hannah came up with would be “quashed” by Baxter.
Mr Clark said he got the impression that Baxter enjoyed seeing people struggling during a gym session.
“I think he felt joy in seeing (people) bent over or if they had to run outside,” he said.
“I think he enjoyed seeing people suffering from the training.
“You could see they were hurting and he just kept going.”
Mr Clark said Baxter burnt a lot of bridges by being entitled. He said Baxter had done the same thing to him by demanding free shoes from his store.
“With us it was coming and getting footwear … he just assumed he was going to get this product,” he said.
“Probably I put up with it a lot longer than most.”
Mr Clark said the first time he realised there was an issue in Baxter’s marriage was when he called him in November 2019 to say he was going to do a job in New Zealand because he needed money to support his family.
Mr Clark said Baxter admitted he would go through Hannah’s phone because he was jealous and said those trust issues stemmed from a previous relationship.
Around Christmas 2019, Mr Clark said he urged Baxter to go see a psychologist when Hannah took out a domestic violence order.
“So he explained to me that in order … for them to I guess fix their marriage he needed to go get his own issues sorted out so Hannah asked if he’d go see a psychologist,” Mr Clark said.
Mr Clark said on New Year’s Eve that year Baxter told him he needed to go see a psychologist but could not get an appointment until he paid a previous invoice.
“I said mate I’ll pay it right now you need to go and see someone,” he said.
Mr Clark said Baxter told him his psychologist had told him he wasn’t to blame for the problems in his marriage.
“He said to me … it wasn’t to do with Rowan and that his mental state was OK and it was to do with Hannah,” he said.
He said Baxter told him the psychologist said he should wait for Hannah to come around.
“Sit back and just wait for it,” he said.
“Coming from him, it was nothing to do with any issues he may have had.”
Mr Clark described Hannah as the “loveliest” person who never showed any sign of anything being wrong.
“You couldn’t tell that something was going on … you wouldn’t know,” he said.
Mr Clark said Baxter told him about abducting their middle child Laianah from a park.
“They were at a park somewhere and when they were walking back to the car and … Laianah was with Rowan,” he said.
“Rowan said he put Laianah in the car … put her seatbelt on and drove her down the Gold Coast.
“He had a closer relationship with her out of the three of them.”
Mr Clark said Baxter had told him he thought he would never see his kids again.
“(He said he was) pretty open with Hannah about it, he FaceTimed Hannah every night,” he said.
“That was the account I was told.”
Mr Clark said Baxter went downhill quickly. He said he lost a lot of weight, stopped training and began talking a lot about pressures at the gym.
“It was all about the kids, just constantly talking about what was going on,” he said.
Mr Clark said it was like he was waiting for the mediation date.
He said Baxter began “posting every night” on social media “so the world could see” his messages to his children.
Mr Clark said when he asked Baxter why he was doing that, Baxter said he hoped Hannah would show the children.
Mr Clark said Baxter began asking him to sack Hannah from her position at his shoe shop, telling him things like: “You’re my mate how come she’s still working for you”.
He said he told Baxter that Hannah was a good employee and he would not fire her.
When asked if Baxter revealed why he wanted her fired, Mr Clark said Baxter told him in a message: “He felt sick knowing she was working for me when I was his mate and I was supposed to be on his side”.
He said Baxter would also regularly ask about Hannah’s whereabouts but he didn’t feel comfortable telling Baxter.
Mr Clark said when Hannah took the children for a trip before school started, Baxter wanted to know where they had gone and for how long but he would not tell him.
“I knew but I obviously didn’t want to say anything about it,” he said.
Mr Clark said he grew weary of Baxter’s constant calls, many early in the morning, in which he wanted to talk about Hannah and that he started to withdraw from the friendship.
He said his observations of Hannah were that she was “lovely and bubbly and bright” and that Baxter tried to paint himself in a positive light and as a victim.
‘VERY SELF-ABSORBED AND SELFISH’ AND A ‘NARCISSIST’
Martin Coll met Baxter and Hannah in about 2014.
He described Baxter as “very self-absorbed and selfish” and a “narcissist”.
“He kind of always seemed to just think of himself,” Mr Coll said.
“Everything revolved around him.”
Mr Coll said Baxter acted like a victim and regularly had relationship breakdowns with people who he claimed had broken his trust or loyalty and he would “evict them every time”.
He said it was quite obvious Baxter was insecure and it was clear in the way he treated other people.
“Even people at the gym who were good athletes, he’d want to put them down to keep his place,” he said.
Mr Coll said in contrast to her husband, Hannah always had everyone else’s interest at heart.
“Anyone who did well she was so happy for them,” he said.
“He would try and tear some people down if they were competing with him.
“He also did that with Hannah, with some of the girls there that were good he would kind of pick holes in them too.”
Mr Coll said when the relationship with Hannah began to break down, Baxter did not have “an adult grasp of how to deal with it”.
Mr Coll revealed Baxter once confided in him that when his relationship with a woman in New Zealand ended, Baxter had considered abducting the woman at gunpoint.
“He had rope in his car and was going to take them out somewhere and end it all, including himself, but for whatever reason he didn’t go through with it,” Mr Coll said.
He said Baxter had issues with a neighbour after opening a gym at Mansfield.
Mr Coll said the neighbour asked Baxter to keep the music down and Baxter told him he’d do what he wanted.
He said after closing that gym and starting another one, Baxter struggled financially.
“He was kind of like a reverse businessmen. He seemed to push people away rather than bring them in,” he said.
“He wasn’t very good for getting members.”
He said by November, 2019, Baxter seemed to become paranoid that Hannah might be having an affair.
Dr Jacoba told the court “there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that supports the notion that she was having an affair”.
Mr Coll said on one occasion, Hannah had told Baxter she’d closed up at the gym with a colleague named Rachel.
Baxter had called Rachel and discovered it had been a male colleague who had closed up.
“So he was immediately suspicious of that,” Mr Coll said.
“He rang Rachel, pretending to thank her … so he could call her out.
“He rang me (and said), she lied to me, why would she lie to me?”
Mr Coll told Baxter it was just easier to lie to him because he would “think the worst”.
He said Baxter called a nearby business and tried to persuade the owner “with a big sob story” to see his CCTV footage to further spy on Hannah.
Mr Coll said he encouraged Baxter to seek professional help.
He said Baxter appeared to be trying to “recruit” people to be on his side during the break up with Hannah and that he had forwarded Mr Coll the letter Hannah sent Baxter and his reply.
“He wasn’t after feedback he was kind of recruiting people,” Mr Coll said.
“He just wants people to be on his side.”
Mr Coll said it was clear Baxter was not coping well. When he told Baxter to get help, he claimed he couldn’t afford it so Mr Coll offered to pay for him.
Mr Coll said he refused to “back” Baxter up in the court case when Baxter made allegations against Hannah.
“I said it wasn’t true and I wouldn’t do it,” he said.
He said in another conversion, Baxter told him he had a recording of Hannah on the phone talking about him.
He said Baxter claimed the children had “accidentally” recorded her and sent it to him.
He said he found Baxter’s version of events “unbelievable”.
On another occasion, Mr Coll was at the hospital with his son when Baxter called crying.
“He rang me there crying and all upset and I just told him I had something to do, I would come and see him straight away when I’d finished,” he said.
“I had to get my son out of the car, put him in a wheelchair and get him in (the house).
“There was no help from Rowan.”
Mr Coll said when he got inside, Baxter “was just sitting in the middle of the floor, sobbing and crying”.
“He sort of got off the floor and collapsed on my shoulder and cried for two minutes – just inconsolable.”
Mr Coll said after that, Baxter texted him regularly and asked him to go to the gym to “keep an eye on Hannah”.
He said in December 2019, he had an hour-long conversation with Hannah after he helped her lock up at the gym.
Hannah told him about Baxter and “how he behaved when he got home and the things he did”.
“His behaviour was very … if she didn’t do what he wanted, generally the kids would pay for it the next day,” Mr Coll said.
“Not getting a treat, not going to the beach – he would make it clear she was the reason they weren’t going.”
In another conversation, he told Mr Coll he would not return the children after having an access visit with them.
“He was just being himself and trying to hurt her,” he said.
Mr Coll said he received a text message from Baxter on December 26 after Baxter abducted Laianah.
The text message said:
“Hey bro, sorry I missed your call. I’m down in Pottsville in NSW for the night. I take it Hannah has phoned you.”
Mr Coll said Baxter was “forever trying to get people onside” and he felt the tone of the text was consistent with that.
He said he was lighthearted in his response because he felt the situation was unstable and he was worried about making it worse.
“At that point, I kind of felt the situation was a little precarious,” Mr Coll said.
“You don’t want to say anything to make it worse. You just kind of play along and keep it light.”
Mr Coll said when Baxter abducted Laianah on December 26, 2019, Hannah called him distraught asking for help.
He tried to call Baxter who ignored him and replied to a text message casually saying he was okay and that he had gone to Pottsville in New South Wales.
Mr Coll told the court he thought Baxter’s actions were escalating and becoming more and more desperate and self-sabotaging.
He said Baxter also tried to play down an incident in which he physically hurt Hannah when he was dropping the children to her and she discovered intimate images of herself in the back seat of his car.
Mr Coll said Baxter made the incident out to be innocent but that did not ring true to him and he believed it was Baxter trying to stop Hannah from proceeding to court.
His last interaction with Baxter came on January 10, 2020, and it was “more of the same” with Baxter’s obsession with Hannah.
“Yeah every conversation was sort of the same, he was the victim, everyone else was wrong,” Mr Coll said.
“He was getting really hard to put up with. It was exhausting.”
Mr Coll gave evidence he deleted text messages he’d exchanged with Hannah because he was so concerned that Baxter would find a way to take his phone.
He said the interactions were innocent but Baxter was paranoid.
“I still didn’t trust he wouldn’t somehow get his hands on my phone,” Mr Coll said.
Asked what could have made a difference in the case, Mr Coll said intervention from authorities may have helped.
He said a police interview or an assessment by a psychiatrist may have raised “red flags”.
“ … I’m sure he wouldn’t have stood up to a real assessment or interview,” Mr Coll said.
However Mr Coll didn’t agree that the lack of intervention bolstered or encouraged Baxter’s behaviour because he wasn’t thinking ahead and was only thinking about himself.
“He treated Hannah and the kids as possessions more than anything else,” he said.
Mr Coll said even when he was offered 30 per cent custody of the children, it was not good enough for Baxter who demanded “my 50”.
$1000 LOAN: WOMEN PROVIDE STATEMENTS ABOUT BAXTER
Two women who interacted with Baxter before he killed his family have been excused from giving evidence.
Dr Brasch said both women had provided statements which have been put before the court.
She said one woman gave evidence about Baxter’s “manipulative and controlling behaviour”.
The woman gave evidence she loaned Baxter $1000 two days before the attack for him to “clear his debts”.
The woman said she told Baxter “not to do anything silly”.
The second woman said she had a conversation with Baxter about forced sex being rape, and he disagreed.
The woman gave a statement saying she saw Baxter on February 15, days before he killed his family on February 19, and he seemed “flat but peaceful” and asked her about counsellors.
More than 30 witnesses are expected to be called during the eight-day inquest into one of the most horrific acts of domestic violence in Australian history.
Deputy State Coroner Jane Bentley will consider interactions the family had with police and domestic violence services, the appropriateness of the responses and whether anything can be done to prevent similar atrocities in the future.
Read related topics:Hannah Clarke
‘Low flying missile’: Rider clocked at 121km/h in 60 zone
A motorcycle rider has been clocked at more than 120km/h along one of the busiest tourist strips on the Sunshine Coast. SEE THE VIDEO
Read more
Five on one: Man with head injuries after gang attack
A man has been taken to hospital with significant head injuries after he was attacked by five people at a park north of Brisbane.
Read more