Beau Lamarre-Condon trial live updates: Former NSW Police officer says he acted in self-defence as trial continues over alleged murders of Jesse Baird, Luke Davies

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The defence case

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

The former police officer has pleaded not guilty to murdering Sydney couple Jesse Baird, 26, and Luke Davies, 29, in the eastern suburbs on February 19, 2024. His criminal trial started in the historic King Street court complex on Monday.

Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield, SC, has now delivered his opening address to the jury, which sets out the prosecution’s case. It must prove the offences beyond reasonable doubt.

Today, Hatfield showed the jury a CCTV image of Lamarre-Condon disguised as an Uber Eats rider outside Baird’s home before the alleged murders, and played them footage recording the sound of three gunshots coinciding with the deaths of Baird and Davies.

The Crown alleges that Lamarre-Condon developed “an obsessive and jealous infatuation” with Baird after a short relationship that began in late 2022 and was ended for the first time by Baird in April 2023 and again in November 2023.

The prosecution alleges that the murder of Baird was premeditated but that he killed Davies, Baird’s new boyfriend, to eliminate a witness to his crime.

However, Lamarre-Condon’s defence barrister, John Stratton, SC, presented the jury with the defence case in his opening address on Tuesday.

He said that Lamarre-Condon went to Baird’s home on February 19, 2024, to collect his belongings, including jewellery, and was disguised because he didn’t want to “go through the embarrassment” of seeing Baird.

• Stratton said Lamarre-Condon entered the home when nobody answered his knock at the door and was “surprised by Jesse Baird”, who “understandably did not recognise him because he was still wearing the motorcycle helmet”.
• The defence case is that the two men struggled and Lamarre-Condon’s police gun went off twice and fatally wounded Baird.
• In the alleged struggle, the gun was “flung into the loungeroom”, Stratton said, and the accused picked up a mobile phone and started ringing Triple Zero.
• He encountered a second man, Davies, and “Mr Davies was now holding the gun”, the defence said. Stratton said Lamarre-Condon “grabbed Mr Davies by the arm and pushed the gun away from himself and towards Mr Davies”.
• The defence said that in the struggle that followed Davies “pulled the trigger and fatally shot himself”.
• Stratton said that Lamarre-Condon had entered Baird’s home on an earlier occasion in August 2023 using a key that Baird had given him. Lamarre-Condon has pleaded not guilty to aggravated break and entry to Baird’s home and stealing Baird’s wallet and phone.

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

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Court takes a break

Court has taken the 1pm break for lunch. The hearing will resume at 2pm.

Storage of police firearm

The court is being taken to rules governing the storage of police firearms.

If officers want to store their firearm at home they need to seek permission to do that, the court hears. The accused had not sought such permission, Pinazza says.

Lamarre-Condon’s role as youth engagement officer

The court hears that Beau Lamarre-Condon “attested” as a police officer, which effectively means graduating from the police academy, in 2017.

Pinazza agrees that police officers receive training about when the use of force is appropriate.

As at February 2024, he was a senior constable. Pinazza says he was working as “a youth engagement officer attached to youth command”, a specialist command that deals predominantly with youth issues.

“Was the accused engaged in any active investigation work?” Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield, SC, asks. “No,” she says.

His duties dictated that he worked between locations, she says, and his home station was in Miranda.

He had allocated to him a firearm and two magazines to go with it, with 15 bullets per magazine.

Officer in charge gives evidence

The Crown has called the first witness in the trial: Sasha Pinazza, the detective in charge of the Beau Lamarre-Condon investigation.

She tells the court that she became involved in the investigation on February 21, 2024, two days after the alleged double murder.

The court hears that she became aware a TAG Heuer watch and a wallet belonging to Luke Davies had been found in a skip bin in Cronulla, and they had been drawn to the attention of local police.

Some of Jesse Baird’s belongings were also found in the bin, the court hears.

‘Like Taylor Swift’s song No Body, No Crime’

Beau Lamarre-Condon allegedly blamed a friend for attempts to conceal the bodies of Jesse Baird and Luke Davis in a dam on a remote farm, the court heard earlier this morning.

The court is now taking a short break before the first witness is called.

Prosecutors allege Lamarre-Condon called a friend, known in the trial as Elizabeth Kennedy, and she accompanied him on the drive to a property called Cella Farm in Bungonia on February 20, 2024, the day after he allegedly murdered the men in Paddington.

They allegedly spoke about how Lamarre-Condon was going to work as a police officer at a coming Taylor Swift concert.

Lamarre-Condon says he acted in self-defence

John Stratton, SC, tells the jury that the defence case is that Lamarre-Condon went to Baird’s Paddington home on the day of the alleged double murders to retrieve some belongings, including jewellery. He expected nobody would be home, Stratton says.

Stratton says Lamarre-Condon wanted to collect his things “without having to go through the embarrassment of having a further meeting with Jesse Baird”.

He “disguised himself … so he could masquerade as a delivery person if anybody unexpectedly opened the door”. He let himself in when nobody answered his knock on the door.

However, he was “surprised by Jesse Baird” and the two men struggled and the gun went off twice and fatally wounded Baird, Stratton says. Baird “understandably did not recognise him because he was still wearing the motorcycle helmet”.

Defence opening begins

Lamarre-Condon’s barrister, John Stratton, SC, is now delivering his opening address to the jury.

He says the defence case is that his client “did not murder either Mr Baird or Mr Davies”.

It was accepted that the deaths were “on any view a tragedy”, Stratton said.

There was no dispute that from about late 2022 until April 2023 the accused and Baird were in a relationship, he said. Stratton said they had a break-up in April, but got together again briefly only to break up permanently in November 2023.

Lamarre-Condon was “very upset” by the second break-up and thought Baird “had not been honest with him”, he said. The defence conceded Lamarre-Condon had done “stupid things”, including looking through Baird’s phone and deleting contacts and text messages.

Stratton says that in August 2023, months before the alleged murders, his client entered Baird’s house in Paddington, but he used a key that had been provided to him by Baird.

Accused allegedly pressured friend to change evidence

The Crown alleges that Lamarre-Condon pressured a friend to whom he had made admissions about both killings “to change his evidence”.

It foreshadows that there will be audio evidence of two meetings the accused had with the friend in December 2025.

Lamarre-Condon allegedly attempted to persuade his friend that he was wrong in his recollection that Lamarre-Condon had admitted shooting the second person, namely Luke Davies.

Accused alleged bullying, trauma

The Crown says that Lamarre-Condon made a call to a police helpline to report an alleged workplace injury on the way to hand himself in at Bondi police station on February 23, 2024.

The court is expected to be played the call during the trial.

“So can you just write … I have been exposed to multiple destruction, death and trauma with minimal support from NSW Police force. I’ve been bullied by multiple police force members,” he allegedly said in the call.

“All this death and trauma, and psychological abuse and trauma, did I say trauma already, um, has caused me not to sleep.

“It’s caused me to have some symptoms of schizophrenia. Actually, sorry … can you just backspace it up … Just delete that whole thing. We’ll just keep it short and sweet.”