"That's as clear as I can be. This happened very, very quick."
A former police officer accused of double murder has stood in the witness box of the New South Wales supreme court and acted out the moment he says he shot his partner's partner, according to The Guardian. Beau Lamarre-Condon is accused of killing Jesse Baird and Luke Davies with his police service weapon at Baird's home in Paddington, Sydney, on 19 February 2024. He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and one charge of aggravated break and enter.
Giving evidence under cross-examination on Monday, Lamarre-Condon repeated his account that Baird was holding a knife during a struggle in the house. He told the court the blade was next to his throat, which led him to push Baird back with his right arm. The crown prosecutor, Brett Hatfield, asked him to stand and demonstrate, instructing him to put his rosary beads down first. According to the prosecutor's narration to the jury, the accused extended his left arm at shoulder height to push the knife away, then gestured pulling the pistol from around his belt, raised it to chest or shoulder height and, with a bent elbow, demonstrated firing towards Baird's right shoulder.
Lamarre-Condon told the court he "discharged a shot" and said he was aiming towards that shoulder. "My arm did extend … I don't know to what extent … there was constant movement in this struggle," he said. "That's as clear as I can be. This happened very, very quick." Hatfield put it to him that last week he had said he was pinned by Baird during the struggle, and asked whether he was now suggesting something different. Lamarre-Condon replied that he was pinned directly before he pushed back and fired, and that there was constant movement before that. Asked what the two men were wearing, he said both were in their underwear and without shoes.
During his evidence-in-chief last week, the accused stood by his decision to fire the first shot but claimed the second bullet was fired accidentally. On Monday he reiterated that he did not intend to fire the second shot at Baird. The trial before Justice Natalie Adams continues.
The significance of the demonstration lies less in what it adds to the factual record than in how it tests the accused's account. A courtroom reenactment fixes a version of events in the jury's mind, but it also invites the prosecution to measure that version against earlier testimony. Hatfield's question about being pinned, and the answer about constant movement, is the kind of narrow discrepancy on which a contested trial can turn. The defence case appears to rest on a claim of struggle and, for the second shot, accident; the prosecution's task is to show that the account shifted under pressure.
Much remains unknown from the report alone. The court has not yet heard the full evidence, no verdict has been reached, and the summary does not set out the prosecution's closing theory or the detail of the forensic case. What can be said is that the trial is proceeding on the accused's own account of a fast-moving confrontation, offered in his own words and now acted out before the jury.
