Beau Lamarre-Condon trial: Ex-cop accused of breaking into TV presenter’s home after ‘savage rejection’

A former policeman has denied accusations he broke into a TV presenter’s home after a “savage rejection” by the man months before he allegedly killed him.

Beau Lamarre-Condon, 31, has pleaded not guilty to the murders of Jesse Baird and Luke Davies, arguing self-defence in his murder trial in the NSW Supreme Court.

Prosecutors allege he broke into Mr Baird’s home on August 17, 2023 as the journalist slept so he could go through his phone and see if he was dating other people.

The TV presenter soon woke up and chased the man - who he did not know was Mr Lamarre-Condon - out of his house.

However, the former policeman claims Mr Baird had invited him over and left out a key, conceding he had wanted to look through the presenter’s phone before he woke up.

Mr Lamarre-Condon was grilled in court about the alleged break-in when he returned to the witness box on Wednesday, with Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield SC earlier accusing Mr Lamarre-Condon of having “orchestrated” bumping into the TV presenter on August 15 as part of his “plan to get back into Jesse Baird’s life”.

The former policeman denied the allegation, with the jury shown text messages between the pair from August 15 to 17 after the meeting.

In the messages, Mr Lamarre-Condon asks to catch up the next weekend after they ran into each other, but Mr Baird just says “It was good to see you too” on August 17.

The former policeman then replied, “Hahaha I’ll take that as a no to doing the catch up then”.

Mr Hatfield accused Mr Lamarre-Condon of giving “completely false” evidence about the exchange.

“It was deliberately false, and you were trying to say you’d been invited over by Mr Baird on the 17th of August, the day you went to his house,” Mr Hatfield alleged.

“No, I disagree,” the alleged killer replied.

Mr Hatfield on Tuesday asked Mr Lamarre-Condon if he agreed it was a “savage” and “very strong rejection” of his advance to Mr Baird.

Mr Lamarre-Condon replied, “That’s not how I interpreted it” and insisted he and Mr Baird communicated again that day.

“You say that rather than that savage rejection, you had a conversation with him about staying the night at his place?” Mr Hatfield asked.

“Yes,” Mr Lamarre-Condon replied.

The jury was earlier told Mr Lamarre-Condon had screenshotted the messages with Mr Baird and sent it to a friend shortly after, with the woman telling Mr Lamarre-Condon “OMG...IM DYING... that’s so savage” according to documents tendered to the court.

Mr Lamarre-Condon denied later trying to manufacture another bump in with Mr Baird after the alleged break in to “suss out” whether the man suspected it was him in the Paddington home on August 17.

He told the jury he “would have told” Mr Baird it was him, but “he didn’t ask me”.

The accused killer also accepted that he had put his own phone on Airplane mode about 11pm on that evening of the 17th and turned it back on after midnight, but denied doing so because “you knew you were about to commit a serious offence”.

“That is not correct, I did for a different purpose,” he told Mr Hatfield.

The jurors were sent home around midday on Wednesday, with Justice Natalie Adams telling them that an “issue has arisen unexpectedly” which happens from time to time during trials.

“(It’s) going to take more time to resolve...What I am going to do is send you home for the day,” she said.

Mr Lamarre-Condon will return to the witness box at 10am on Thursday to continue his evidence.