Moggill MP and one-time Liberal Party leader Dr Bruce Flegg was another of Gerard’s mates. The pair lived a kilometre apart and Gerard would tip his friend off if there was a speed camera on their road.

With his parents on board as partners, Gerard opened a real estate business, Century 21 Westside.

In 2005 they won a Quest business achiever award. That same year, Gerard won a platinum award at Century 21’s quarterly accolades.

They won another business achiever award in 2007. He was photographed, gold jacket clad, bounding into the air celebrating his achievement.

Gerard made BRW’s "fast starters" list in 2008. He’d brag about it for years after – even on the stand at his own murder trial.

He became a pillar of the western suburbs community. Some considered him a worthy candidate for an LNP seat.

He was successful and charming.

In 2005, while Allison was at home with two children, Gerard worked his charm on a woman and her partner while he sold their block of land.

News_Rich_Media: VIDEO: Mistress' evidence

Her name was Toni McHugh. She was in the business too. She’d been an art teacher who turned to property management.

In 2007, Toni, a striking mother-of-three, applied for a job with Gerard’s business. They worked together for a few months before anything happened.

She saw him as a mentor. She admired him, found him attractive. There was chemistry for her, right from the start.

She didn’t realise he felt the same way until, in August 2008, he asked her to kiss him.  Four days after his 11th wedding anniversary.

It wasn’t his first affair. He’d spent a month in a liaison with a woman named Michelle Hammond he had met through real estate circles. He was an experienced deceiver.

He and Toni began meeting in secret. They snatched moments and covered them with lies. He needed to work back late. She needed to work back late.

Their illicit romance played out in the pitch black of a dead-end dirt track in Moggill State Forest. Nobody would find them there. The trees hid any light from the road, from nearby houses.

They met at the office, after hours, when everyone else had gone home.

Twice they went to Gerard’s home when Allison and the girls were away down the coast.

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 In November, three months after the affair began, she left the father of her children. Toni couldn’t continue her betrayal. Gerard wouldn’t stop his. He couldn’t leave his wife. Not yet.

Their relationship became a roller-coaster punctuated by Gerard’s empty promises. He told Toni he loved her. He told her he’d leave his wife. Talked about the car they’d buy to accommodate his children and hers.

He began meeting Toni at her new unit, telling Allison he’d been caught up at work.

Allison’s closest friends looked at Gerard through narrowed, suspicious eyes. They told her he was up to something. But Allison always thought the best of people. She reassured them all was fine. Her friends talked about hiring a private detective to follow him. 

His parents sold out of the agency and retired and two new partners, Phil Broom and Jocelyn Frost, came on board.  The partners left the financial side of things to Gerard. He was, after all, a qualified accountant.

Some of the staff began to suspect something was going on between Toni and the boss. They saw the glances. The closeness.

In 2009 Gerard, Phil and Jocelyn went along to a real estate retreat on the Gold Coast. Phil and Jocelyn brought their partners along for the weekend but Gerard came alone.

Phil was downstairs on the last morning checking them out of the three rooms. He was told Gerard had already left. At midnight, the night before in fact. It seemed strange to Phil.

"If there was a free breakfast, Gerard was normally there,’’ he said.

Toni’s work became inconsistent. Sometimes the sales flowed in through her capable hands. Then she’d sell nothing at all. It would turn out the highs and lows of her work matched the fortunes of her tumultuous relationship with Gerard.

Gerard was constantly hugging the staff.  Phil decided the hugs were Gerard’s way of trying to deflect the attention he was giving to Toni. He told Gerard to stop.

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Things got more serious.

Gerard was staying over at Toni’s a lot. He’d tell Allison he was being kept back at work.

News_Rich_Media: Baden-Clay tells jury of affair

They’d go to movies together. Go for breakfast.

They all went to a workmate’s engagement party. Gerard ignored his wife to lavish attention on his mistress. Toni, uncomfortable with Gerard’s attention and Allison’s presence, left early.

Gerard disappeared at the same time. Eventually, Allison started asking after him. She asked Phil to go and check the toilets.

She was more concerned than suspicious. She knew her marriage was a mess. But she had no idea what her husband had been up to.

She’d organised a weekend at a resort for their wedding anniversary that year and told him it was up to him to join her. If he so chose.

She had surprised him when she asked what was wrong with their marriage.

He told her he wanted to leave. She was shocked. She’d put it down to a midlife crisis.

She’d taken him to see her psychiatrist after that.

She was hoping the man who’d successfully treated her depression for the past six years would be able to offer a solution to their relationship problems.

Gerard had sat down next to her and announced he wanted out. He’d complained about the way she left everything up to him. Complained about the money she’d spent on a treadmill. Didn’t mention the affairs, the woman from the office he’d promised to leave her for.

The business partners went to another conference in Sydney in May, 2010.  Jackie Crane was there. She was a real estate agent Gerard had met at a training course. Things might have been serious with Toni, Gerard might have been married to Allison, but on Friday night he stayed with Jackie.

On Saturday morning he called Toni. Could she get on a flight to Sydney and spend the night with him?

Phil and Jocelyn were surprised when she arrived that day. They all met for dinner at a Chinese restaurant near the harbour. Gerard and his mistress sat together like a couple, openly affectionate.

Jackie Crane was also surprised. To Phil, it seemed like Jackie was expecting to be Gerard’s "special guest" at dinner that night.

They talked about it when they got back to Brisbane, Phil and Gerard. Two blokes talking women.

Gerard told Phil he loved Toni. It was over with his wife. They didn’t even sleep in the same bed anymore.

He told Phil too about his plans for a bigger car. It would need to fit his three girls and Toni’s two boys.

Eventually Phil pulled him up. They were mates, he said, but Gerard had to stop living a double life.

How had he managed to get himself into this situation, Phil asked him. He would never forget Gerard’s response.

“It’s a lot like being a baby shaker,’’ he said.

“You don’t think you’re a baby shaker until you’re caught shaking a baby."

Gerard didn’t confess the full truth. Trysts with women he met in real estate were no longer enough.

He had set up his adultfriendfinder.com profile so he could find secret new flings on the internet.
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GERARD’S love life wasn’t the only thing in a mess.

Nobody in the real estate business but Gerard had any idea how much money was coming in and going out.

Business had boomed in 2010. Phil and Jocelyn were bringing in the cash, selling properties and running a rental list. Money was flowing through the door.

Some weeks the partners were being paid $5000 a week. Other times they weren’t paid at all. They were all owed money.

That was the year they decided to expand, move to a bigger office.

The partners asked Gerard to show them the business financial figures.  They felt he was dodging them. Pushing lease papers at them instead.

The new office in Taringa was bigger, and would accommodate a new team of sales staff. They would be doubling their office space but more than doubling their rent.

By the end of 2010, as they made the move, the partners were barely getting paid. Phil couldn’t work it out. Their sales commissions for that quarter had been enormous.

Twice they’d gone above Gerard, to Century 21’s head office, to express concerns that he had too much power. That he was accountable to no-one.

They’d only been in the new office a few days when, in January, 2011, Gerard called a meeting.

He dropped a bombshell. They were in big trouble — they were $350,000 in debt. They were in debt. There was more money going out than coming in. Their financial position was dire.

Phil and Jocelyn were stunned. They’d made so much in 2010. Where had it all gone?

The partners went back to the financial records, trying to follow the money, but it was all too late. They talked about whether Gerard had been misusing funds.

And then the floods hit. That great wall of water that wiped out thousands of homes also wiped out any chance they had of rebuilding the business. With three quarters of Queensland declared a disaster zone, no-one was buying and selling any property.

Gerard’s partners didn’t trust him anymore. A meeting was called so Phil and Jocelyn could have it out with him.

They had a list of demands they thought could save them. Gerard needed to sort out his personal life. He had to choose his wife or his mistress. They wanted him to step down as managing director, introduce controls on the movement of cash and get back to selling properties.

They were hoping for a contrite Gerard. One who hung his head and relied on them to pick up the pieces of their broken business. 

But Gerard was never contrite.

There was swearing and crying. It went on for hours. Gerard even claimed the affair with Toni was to help bring much-needed cash through the door, keeping an agent who could sell well from going elsewhere. 

“I only continue to f — k her for the sake of the business,’’ he said.

Within days the once successful partnership was over.

Gerard bought out Phil and Jocelyn for a dollar apiece and took on all his debt.

By then, Phil had worked out who the real Gerard Baden-Clay was.

“Gerard has a public face which is ethical, moral and upstanding. A lot of this is legacy fuelled due to his great-grandfather," he would tell police.

“He is involved in all the right groups, but it’s always about what’s in it for him.

“He would lecture staff about lying, but would continue this long-term affair.’’

Gerard had found himself in command of a failing business. He had taken on a massive debt and his personal life was in turmoil.

And then Allison found out about his affair with Toni.

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