Hellish home life, career sabotage, flailing final moments: Murder-accused Cr’s mum drops explosive bombshell
The mum of a councillor accused of killing his stepdad has revealed the ‘emotional abuse’ her family experienced.
Police & Courts
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The mother of a young Gold Coast city councillor accused of killing his stepfather says she and her family lived in fear of her now-dead partner and his “irrational controlling behaviour”.
In explosive court documents, Katrina Bayldon says her long-time de facto Robert Lumsden subjected the family to “years of emotional and verbal abuse” and threatened to end stepson Ryan Bayldon-Lumsden’s political career if he didn’t break up with a former Cirque du Soleil acrobat.
Ms Bayldon also said she only felt safe to speak now that her partner was dead.
Bayldon-Lumsden, 30, was granted bail in Brisbane Supreme Court on Thursday after being charged with murdering Mr Lumsden, 58, at their Arundel home last week.
Police have alleged in court documents that Cr Bayldon-Lumsden told them he had been in an “abusive and coercively controlled” relationship with his stepfather and put him in a “choker hold” in an altercation after a $25 bakery lunch.
Cr Bayldon-Lumsden told cops he had trained in martial arts, knew “certain choke holds that could render a person unconscious” and restrained his “flailing” stepfather for about two minutes before he stopped moving and “went limp”, documents filed as part of the bail application allege.
In an extraordinary affidavit in support of his bail bid, Ms Bayldon - who is deputy principal at Southport State High - told the court that Mr Lumsden was an angry man who “made life at home very unpleasant” and “wanted to control everything that occurred in the household”.
Ms Bayldon said her 1.83m, 115kg partner was “a very hard disciplinarian” of her 1.7m, 67kg son - controlling his education, relationships, sport and even his bank accounts when he became a $160,000-a-year Gold Coast councillor in 2020 and giving him an “allowance” from his wages.
Mr Lumsden would wake up Cr Bayldon-Lumsden at all hours of the night for a “discussion” and take him on three-hour drives to “sharpen” him, Ms Bayldon stated.
The documents tendered as part of the bail hearing also feature claims he was also abusive of Cr Bayldon-Lumsden’s girlfriend - Cirque du Soleil performer Bianca Ruyssenaers - and told him to end the relationship because “she is not going to be of any assistance to you getting re-elected”.
In her own affidavit to the court, Ms Ruyssenaers said she only knew Cr Bayldon-Lumsden as a “soft, loving and caring individual” who became “stressed, upset and frightened” when discussing his stepfather.
She said when she asked him why he still lived at home with his parents at 30 and on his salary, he told her: “I have to be there for my mum and sister.”
Ms Bayldon also claimed in her affidavit that Mr Lumsden, who ran Ryan’s election
campaign, had threatened him about two weeks ago: “You will do what I say otherwise I will destroy your career and you know I could do it. If that happens, you will never see or speak to your family again.”
Mr Lumsden also controlled their 18-year-old daughter Ruth, recording her weight each week, putting her on a gym program and getting “very cranky” if she did not lose enough kilos, Ms Bayldon said.
Both her children had told her they would purposely not buy items on the shopping list so they had an excuse to go back to the shops and “get out of the house and away from Robert”.
“Our household was not a happy functional household,” Ms Bayldon told the court in her statement.
“We experienced a lot of fear and anxiety trying to negotiate Robert’s irrational controlling behaviour.
“We did everything we could in an attempt to prevent Robert getting angry and losing his temper.
“I cannot explain why I let Robert control me and treat me and my children so badly for so long. Robert’s behaviour towards all of us got worse and worse over the years and after a while it all just seemed normal.
“I feel like Robert was in total control of me and my children. It is only now that he is gone that I feel that I am safe to speak about the years of emotional and verbal abuse that my children and I suffered at the hands of Robert.”
Ms Bayldon also said in her affidavit the incident leading to Mr Lumsden’s death was “entirely out of character for Ryan”.
“Ryan is not at all like Robert,” she stated.
“He is a peacemaker who did his best to keep the peace in our house and protect Ruth and me from Robert’s irrational and controlling behaviours.”
Ms Bayldon offered to put up a “substantial surety” against the house in which the alleged murder took place as surety to secure her son’s freedom on bail.
“I love my son dearly and will do all things required of me to assist him in ensuring that he complies with any condition of bail imposed by this honourable court,” she said.
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