Beau Lamarre-Condon trial live updates: Former NSW Police officer’s cross-examination continues over alleged murders of Jesse Baird, Luke Davies

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of Beau Lamarre-Condon’s criminal trial in the NSW Supreme Court in Sydney.

Lamarre-Condon, 31, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder over the deaths of Jesse Baird, 26, a former TV presenter, and Luke Davies, 29, a Qantas flight attendant, in Paddington on February 19, 2024. His case is that he acted in self-defence, the 15-person jury has been told.

The former NSW police officer started giving evidence on Thursday and returns to the witness box at 10am today for cross-examination by Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield, SC.

Here are the key parts of his evidence on Friday:

• Lamarre-Condon said he entered Baird’s Paddington share house through an open door on February 19, 2024, to collect some of his belongings – including a $25,000 Cartier ring and Casablanca shirts worth thousands – after their relationship ended in November 2023. He said he also had a key with him that Baird had cut for him in November.
• He said his relationship with Baird was romantic but was not exclusive. He believed nobody was home despite the door being ajar when he entered the home, he said.
• The accused had his police weapon with him because he had contemplated taking his own life on February 18 over work-related trauma and had intended to return it to Miranda police station later that day, he said.
• He said he struck upon an idea that morning to dress as an Uber Eats delivery rider and used a motorcycle helmet, high-visibility clothing and bags he saw on a bike in Paddington. “I was worried if I knocked on the door it may be perceived as harassment … because Jesse told me, ‘please refrain from contacting me’,” Lamarre-Condon said.
• He entered the home after knocking three times and saying hello loudly and receiving no reply.
• He ran upstairs and hid when he heard noises in the home and came back downstairs later, encountering Baird in the kitchen. He said he took off the high-visibility jacket upstairs and his firearm was “secreted under my shirt. You could not see it. It was actually to the rear of me on a plain-clothes holster so no one could be under the impression that I had a firearm on me”.
• Baird did not recognise Lamarre-Condon with the helmet on and lunged at him with a knife, he said. He said at one stage the knife “tore my whole blue shirt open” and he was pinned to a wall in the kitchen.
• He shot Baird once in the shoulder to disarm him and accidentally in the head when they fell to the floor.
• “I 110 per cent stand by that first shot because if I didn’t do it Jesse Baird would be sitting here in the box today, and he would have to explain why he drove a knife into my throat,” he said.
• “Jesse did not have his finger on the trigger,” he said. “It was my fault. I’ve said from the start I am guilty of manslaughter and I’m responsible for his death, but it wasn’t intentional.”
• Lamarre-Condon said he found a phone and called Triple Zero and went into “police mode” to try to “save” Baird.
• The accused said Davies grabbed the gun and pointed it at him, and later pulled the trigger and shot himself in front of Baird’s bedroom door. The Crown case is that Lamarre-Condon shot Davies through the door.
• He admitted to cleaning Baird’s house and disposing of the men’s bodies before turning himself in to police on February 23, 2024.

Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732), the Men’s Referral Service on 1300 766 491, and Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield, SC, asks Lamarre-Condon about his evidence on Friday that he was pinned against a kitchen wall before he fired the first shot at Jesse Baird.

“I was pinned directly before I pushed [him] back and fired the shot,” Lamarre-Condon said.

Lamarre-Condon is back in the witness box and is being cross-examined about the first shot he says he fired at Jesse Baird.

He told the court on Friday that he had the gun in his right hand and “nudged him back”, anywhere from about 20 centimetres to a metre. He said that he still had a hold of Baird with his left hand, with his gun in his right hand.

He said this morning that he “pushed him back as far as I could”.

“He’s moving backwards facing towards me,” he said. He said he “let go” and fired a shot towards Baird’s right shoulder.

Lamarre-Condon told the court the first shot he fired at Baird was deliberate and “was the right move; I stand by it”. He was trying to disarm Baird, he said.

“I was pinned up against the kitchen wall,” he said.“I essentially had Jesse with his left forearm pinning me up against the wall and he was swinging around the knife.”

The accused said that “at certain points Jesse’s left forearm was against my chest and then he would move it and then he would swing the knife with his right hand and … many times during this struggle both my hands were on his right hand trying to hold the knife away.”

He reached for his gun after Baird slashed his shirt with a knife he said during cross-examination.

“I just maintained my left hand holding his right arm away from me while I reached for my firearm,” he said.

“I just remember pointing and aiming towards his right shoulder. We were close. At this point, I think I pushed him, I had the gun in my right hand and I had nudged him back to get a good further shot at him at his right shoulder, so, anywhere from 20 centimetres to a metre, but I still had a hold of his right hand with my left hand.”

Lamarre-Condon has told the court he had his gun with him when he went to Baird’s house because he had contemplated taking his own life the night before due to work-related trauma and had planned to return the weapon to Miranda police station later that day.

He said that when he entered Baird’s home his firearm was “secreted under my shirt”.

“You could not see it. It was actually to the rear of me on a plain-clothes holster so no one could be under the impression that I had a firearm on me,” he said.

Lifeline on 13 11 14

Lamarre-Condon told the court during his evidence-in-chief that he came across Jesse Baird in the kitchen of his home. Baird was holding a knife and tape as he sealed up packing boxes, the accused said.

He said Baird did not recognise him in the motorcycle helmet and lunged at him with the knife, leading to a struggle in which he shot Baird once to disarm him and shot him a second time by accident as they fell to the ground.

He told the court he stood by his decision to shoot Baird the first time and was responsible for his death but he did not intend to kill him.

In his opening address to the court, Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield, SC, alleged Lamarre-Condon shot Baird “once through the right base of the neck near his shoulder and out through his jaw” once in the right temple in an “execution style shot”.

Lamarre-Condon denied shooting Baird in the back and said he was aiming for his shoulder to disarm him.

Lamarre-Condon told the court on Friday that he was confronted with a “moral dilemma” after Baird and Davies died.

He said he knew the truth was he was “guilty of manslaughter [over Baird’s death] and manslaughter carries a maximum penalty of 25 years”.

“I’m a police officer [at the time],” he said. “Police officers put people in jail. People in jail want to kill cops.

“In my mind I was fearful that if I went to police that I knew that what I had done to Jesse, and Jesse only, was manslaughter and that if I did the right thing that I was signing my own death wish potentially by getting stabbed or killed in jail.” He said that Davies shot himself by accident.

He appeared to become emotional as he said it “was so conflicting because I really, really wanted to go to police but I was genuinely of the belief that if I go to jail that I’m going to be killed not because of who I am as a person but because of the uniform that I wear”.