Gold Coast soldier Christopher Carter on trial at Brisbane Supreme Court: Everything you need to know
THE trial of Gold Coast soldier Christopher Carter continues in Brisbane Supreme Court tomorrow. Here’s everything you need to know about it.
Crime and Court
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IT is 1998 and Christopher Carter is working as a butcher’s apprentice on the Sunshine Coast when he meets his future wife, Renee.
Both 18, they soon move in together at Tewantin and become pregnant with their first child.
Soon after, Carter enlisted in the Army.
“(Our) relationship was very good at this stage,” the Brisbane Supreme Court heard this week where Carter has pleaded not guilty to murdering his ex-wife and her partner, convicted paedophile Corey Croft, at their Upper Coomera home on January 20, 2015.
“We were not fighting and had a loving relationship.
“It was just like any normal relationship, by that I mean we had a happy relationship.”
They were married in Townsville after Carter was transferred north for work.
In November 2000, came a deployment to East Timor.
Back home, Renee was pregnant with their second child and the young lovers kept in touch once a week, whenever Chris could get his hands on the satellite phone.
“Three months in, I was injured in a grenade explosion. I was sent home ... it was not life threatening and I could walk,” the court heard.
After Carter’s return, things were blissful for a time.
The beginning of the end was in 2003 when close friends who lived next door in Army accommodation at Townsville moved.
CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE GCB FOR AS LITTLE AS 50C A DAY“Renee was always a drinker ever since I met her,” Carter told the court.
“We were young, we’d just go out and drink like most young people. (But for Renee) it was always in excess.
“It was fine (our marriage) until the start of 2003. She was going out and having affairs.”
They separated and got back together countless times before Carter moved out in 2004, leaving the children with Renee.
About a year later, he re-partnered with another woman, Belinda Goodchild, and the pair had a daughter.
Renee began to “hassle” Carter and his new girlfriend, the court was told.
“Renee for a long time was what I would describe as a serial pest, the frequency of what we received was on a daily basis,” Carter told the court.
By 2005, things were messy.
Lawyers were involved before Carter was deployed to Iraq in 2007.
Three weeks before he was expected to return to Australia, the authorities contacted the Army to tell Carter his children would soon be removed from Renee’s care.
“I was concerned, I made all appropriate steps to come back in Australia. I was back in two days,” Carter said in evidence.
Carter was subsequently awarded custody of his children.
In 2008, Renee went to rehab in Brisbane and started doing better.
“In 2009, Corey (Croft) and Renee got together,” Carter told the jury yesterday.
“Essentially, everything with Renee and how I’d seen Renee conduct herself changed.
“When I was talking to her I noticed she had become quite normal. There was no harassment going on ... it had become more of an amicable arrangement.”
In 2012, the father-of-three became aware his ex-wife’s new boyfriend was a convicted paedophile.
More than three years before Croft was found dead alongside Ms Carter at their suburban Gold Coast home, the daughter of a police officer, who was a friend of the family, contacted Carter to tell him Croft was a convicted sex offender living under an alias, the court was told.
The court heard Croft had forced a 10-year-old girl to shower with him.
Croft was also convicted of raping a child in South Australia and had a conviction for possessing child exploitation material in Queensland, the court heard.
Carter, who had left the Army and was working again as a butcher, yesterday told the court he was “devastated” to hear what had happened to the girl.
By 2014, the relationship between Carter and Ms Goodchild had broken down, but they were still on good terms.
He met his now fiancé, Angela Slade, working at IGA in Townsville.
Carter re-enlisted in the Army and they planned to move to the Gold Coast so he could work at Canungra Army Barracks as a sergeant.
“My whole adult life was in the Army, I missed everything about it,” Carter said in evidence. “I didn’t adjust back to essentially being a civilian.”
In the same year, Renee served jail time for Centrelink fraud.
Soon after her release, she contacted Carter for the first time in years saying she wanted to speak about family matters.
In January 2015, Renee started “harassing” Ms Slade, the court heard.
“I was annoyed with the whole situation. It was just Renee being Renee,” Carter said in evidence.
On January 20, Carter had his first day of work at Canungra.
It’s about a 45-minute drive from home to the Hinterland base.
Carter had been required to stay back late for a compulsory meet and greet with the other sergeants that finished about 7pm.
“There were hundreds of people there,” Carter said in evidence.
Despite telling police when he was first arrested that he’d gone straight home, Carter told the court he went to speak to Renee.
“The only thing I hadn’t done up until that point was have a face-to-face argument with her ... a face-to-face chat. I didn’t know if it would work.”
It was twilight when Carter parked his white 4WD nearby Renee and Croft’s Skylark St home on January 20, 2015.
He was wearing his Army clothes and boots, but had a change of clothes in the car in case he’d had to change for the work meet-and-greet.
“I parked about 20 to 30 metres up the road,” Carter said in evidence.
“The reason I did that is ‘cause (sic) Renee’s got a habit where she sees someone out the front she doesn’t want to talk to she won’t come to the door.”
But Renee was at the door that summer afternoon, standing on the patio smoking a cigarette, wearing a grey T-shirt.
“It took me back a bit, the last time I saw her she was quite thin ... she was a totally different person so I was taken aback,” Carter told the court.
“I said we need to talk.”
Renee asked Carter to leave. He told the court she went inside before he claims she came at him with a knife.
“I was in shock. I didn’t know what was going on. I was in fear of my life. She’d just tried to kill me. If I didn’t move it away from me. She would have stabbed me in the neck.”
For the next several minutes, Carter claims he wrestled with Renee and was forced to stab her repeatedly to get her off him before he saw someone else coming out of the house.
That man was Corey Croft.
Earlier in the week, Carter told the court he did not know Renee was still seeing the convicted paedophile.
Carter said he stabbed the pair in an effort to save his own life.
Carter dumped his clothes in a wheelie bin at a nearby park and changed into the spares he had in the car.
Carter said he later lied to police about his involvement because he wanted to spend more time with his family before being taken into custody.
“I knew there was no way out of it ... it was only a matter of time before I was going to be sitting here in this position,” Carter said from the stand yesterday.
Renee Carter’s mother cried in her hands.
The trial continues on Monday.
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