Gerard Baden-Clay guilty of murder of wife Allison
GERARD Baden-Clay did murder his wife, Australia’s highest court ruled. And her best friend was jubilant at the result.
GERARD Baden-Clay murdered his wife Allison, Australia’s highest court has ruled.
In the final ruling on one of Queensland’s longest running court sagas on Wednesday morning, the High Court of Australia reinstated Baden-Clay’s murder conviction.
The decision overrules a controversial ruling made by the Queensland Court of Appeal last year that set aside the father-of-three’s murder conviction and substituted it with manslaughter.
He has no further avenues of appeal.
The one-time real estate agent will now continue to serve his life sentence.
He will not be eligible for parole until 2027.
Outside court, Allison Baden-Clay’s jubilant and tearful best friend, Kerry Anne Walker, said today “was a good day for the good guys”.
“Gerard Baden-Clay murdered his amazing wife Allison,” Ms Walker said outside court.
“The evidence in his original trial displayed his intent as well as his character.
“Today’s decision brings to an end Gerard’s attempts to smear Allison’s name.
“If some are in doubt as to his true nature, his behaviour after Allison’s disappearance and during the trial must have removed this doubt.
“Four and a half years ago, three beautiful girls went to bed with a mother and the next morning they woke without one.
“He let them and the whole community worry and anguish for days about what had happened.”
Geoff and Priscilla Dickie, Allison’s parents who now care for her three daughters with Gerard, did not travel to Canberra for the ruling.
The High Court ruled that, “the Court of Appeal erred in concluding that the jury’s verdict of guilty of murder was unreasonable”.
It was a unanimous ruling by the five presiding judges.
“It was common ground on the appeal that the respondent killed his wife. The High Court held that the hypothesis on which the Court of Appeal acted was not available on the evidence,” the ruling reads.
“At the trial, the respondent denied that he had fought with his wife, killed her and disposed of her body.
“His evidence, being the evidence of the only person who could give evidence on the issue, was inconsistent with that hypothesis.
“Further, the jury were entitled to regard the whole of the evidence as satisfying them beyond reasonable doubt that the respondent acted with intent to kill or cause grievous bodily harm when he killed his wife.
“The court ordered that the respondent’s conviction for murder be restored.”
Ms Walker said Allison would be proud of her friends and family in their long fight for justice.
She said her friend’s legacy would be her three “beautiful girls”.
“Allison loved being a wife and a mother and worked incredibly hard to do both to the best of her ability,” she said.
“Even though it has been said many times before, she was indeed an amazing woman.
“Her legacy will be her three beautiful girls, who, surrounded by their memories of Allison and the love and support of Allison’s devoted family are thriving in their busy lives.
“All who know them are confident they will go on to achieve great things.
“I’m in awe every day as to how well Allison’s parents Geoff and Priscilla and her sister Vanessa deal with their everyday lives.
“The girls are certainly a tribute to them.”
The one-time high flying real estate agent was sentenced to life in prison after a Supreme Court jury found him guilty of Allison’s murder, following a six-week trial in 2014.
From the time Allison’s body was found, Baden-Clay has maintained he had no involvement in his wife’s death, however, on appeal, his defence team conceded there was sufficient evidence to point to the fact he killed her.
What there was not sufficient evidence of, they successfully argued, was that he did so intentionally.
It was a controversial change of tactic that was met with widespread outrage, particularly when the Court of Appeal ruled there was not sufficient evidence to prove murder, setting aside the conviction and substituting with manslaughter.
In a High Court challenge to the ruling last month, Walter Sofronoff, QC, argued there was sufficient evidence to prove Baden-Clay intentionally killed his wife.
Mr Sofronoff argued that Baden-Clay’s “cold-blooded” disposal of his wife’s body, combined with his ongoing lies of involvement in her death, made him a man more than capable of murder.
He also said his ongoing affair with long-time mistress Toni McHugh, and the prospect that she and Allison were both scheduled to attend a real estate industry lunch the day after she died, gave him the motive to kill her.
Mr Sofronoff said pressure was growing on Baden-Clay the night his wife died.
He had recommenced an affair with Ms McHugh without his wife’s knowledge and had promised her he would leave Allison by July 1, 2011 just days before Allison died.
He was hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and had been refused loans by friends and acquaintances, which had put him in danger of losing his real estate business.
The Baden-Clays were also undergoing marriage counselling.
“It was clear the defendant had found living with his wife intolerable and unendurable,” Mr Sofronoff said.
“In the case of this woman he made a promise to end his marriage he described as unconditional.
“We have cited in our outline a number of cases that evidence of motive, including evidence that a man’s longing to be with another woman other than his wife could be evidence of intent to murder.”
Mr Sofronoff argued that collectively, the circumstantial factors pointed to motive to kill.
Baden-Clay’s defence lawyer Michael Byrne, QC, again argued, there was only sufficient evidence to point to the fact he killed her but insufficient proof of intent.
“There is no evidence available that the accused intended to kill or do grievous bodily harm,” Mr Byrne said.
“All the evidence goes to show is there was an argument, then maybe a fight and she responded physically and she was dead.”
He dismissed the argument his client’s conduct after Allison’s disappearance pointed to him being guilty of intentionally killing her, saying though there were “aspects of callousness” it did not prove murder.
“It’s important to note there was simply no evidence of violence between them and that came from their three children,” he said.
It has now been more than four years since Baden-Clay took Allison’s life in the lush, subtropical surrounds of their family home in Brisbane’s affluent west.
When he reported missing her missing on April 20, 2012, suspicion fell almost immediately upon him.
An overwhelming body of evidence pointed to the fact it was he who took her life — the scratches she left on his face, the foliage from their garden found in her hair and the drops of her blood discovered in the family car he used to drive her 14km to a creek bed, where he dumped her body.
It intensified 10 days later when her body was found by a kayaker on the banks of the Kholo Creek.
It took a further six weeks for detectives investigating the mother-of-three’s death to charge him with her murder, a charge he has denied ever since.
Despite his defence team admitting there is sufficient evidence to implicate him in Allison’s death, Baden-Clay continues to deny he had any involvement.
The Court of Appeal’s sensational downgrading of the murder conviction in late 2015, prompted a massive public outcry.
It culminated in a public rally in Brisbane’s CBD, which was attended by thousands demanding “Justice for Allison”.
In a highly unusual move, the Queensland Director of Public Prosecutions appealed the downgraded conviction in the High Court of Australia.
It took just more than a month for the five-judge bench to return their ruling.
Baden-Clay has served just more than four years of the life sentence imposed by the Supreme Court.
kim.stephens@news.com.au