The Murder of Allison Baden-Clay

by David Murray

  On Monday 16 June, the court was due to hear from those central to the case. Nigel Baden-Clay was to finish his testimony and would be followed by Gerard’s sister, Olivia Walton. Next were Allison’s parents, Geoff and Priscilla Dickie, and her close friend, Kerry-Anne Walker. After Walker, star witness Toni McHugh was scheduled to face questioning.

  It was a momentous day and the Dickie family’s large contingent of supporters turned out in force. When the courtroom doors opened, 35 relatives and friends of Allison and eight relatives and friends of Gerard took their seats, leaving only five for the public. In a show of kindness rarely reserved for the media, the members of the public who were next in line stood aside to let me and Courier-Mail colleague Kate Kyriacou, along with Channel 9’s Chris Allen, into court.

  Those who didn’t make the cut, many of whom had been lining up for hours, politely went to the overflow court upstairs, which was itself overflowing. In this court, people were crammed into every available seat including the dock, jury area and at the bench, ready to study the live video feed.

  That morning, Gerard’s barrister, Michael Byrne, resumed his questioning. Nigel was at pains to point out that two things Gerard did which had drawn heavy criticism in the media – namely, calling in lawyers on day one and trying to lodge an insurance claim with unseemly haste – were both down to him. Gerard’s father told the court he suggested his son contact a lawyer after hearing that 15 police officers and nine police vehicles were at his son’s home on the Friday.

  ‘I found that alarming news and I immediately telephoned my son. I said to him, “It’s probably time that you had a lawyer. Would you like me to organise that for you?” And he said, “Yes, please.”’

  Nigel turned to Gerard’s friends Rob Cheesman and Stuart Christ for advice on a lawyer and ‘both of them named the same person’. Nigel phoned the lawyer that morning, setting off a chain of events. The lawyer phoned Gerard and told him not to do anything until he heard from Gold Coast criminal defence lawyer Darren Mahony, who called a short time later. Nigel also testified he raised the issue of Allison’s insurance with Gerard after the body was discovered at Kholo Creek.

  ‘I said, “One of your obligations is to notify the insurance company as soon as it is obvious that the person is deceased.” And understandably, [me] having been an insurance agent, he asked me to take care of the paperwork and he would duly sign it. So this is what I did.’

  Fuller, in re-examination, asked Nigel if he saw any manifestations of Allison’s depression in 2012, rather than the distant past. Here, Nigel offered his opinion about Allison’s dress sense: ‘One of the things that we came to realise was that Allison’s dress was always of a dull nature. It was black or brown or possibly cream. There was nothing bright in her wardrobe at all, and I think that was a sort of an indication that she was a depressed person.’

  Outside court, this comment had everyone talking. The whole of Melbourne would be depressed by his rule of thumb, someone groaned. The defence’s tactic of highlighting Allison’s depression was in danger of backfiring through heavy-handedness.

  When Olivia Walton took the stand she described Allison’s depression with an even greater level of detail. Olivia told the jury she graduated from the Australian Defence Force Academy and Royal Military College at Duntroon. She had been posted to Townsville, but was medically discharged with a back injury before returning to Brisbane in 1999. In lengthy evidence, Olivia told the court Gerard treated Allison like a princess – even calling her Princess when they first met.

  ‘They were very much in love and it was very obvious. I loved seeing them together and I enjoyed their company,’ she said.

  However, she and husband, Ian Walton, noticed strain between the couple after they had their first child. They clashed over parenting styles and seemed less affectionate. Olivia said Gerard would drive Allison everywhere. Her brother would also visit frequently with their daughter while Allison remained home to rest, she said. After being diagnosed with depression during her second pregnancy, Allison asked Olivia to help with childcare once a week. Sometime around 2010, Allison came over one day, lay on the couch and began crying. ‘I asked her what was wrong and I remember her telling me that their finances were – they were really struggling,’ Olivia said.

  Olivia and her family moved back to Townsville in June 2011 and had very little contact with Gerard and Allison in the year leading up to her death. Olivia was in Brisbane on holiday when Allison disappeared and had driven to her brother’s home that morning to help search and settle the girls.

  Fuller asked if Olivia remembered anything about her brother’s physical appearance the morning he reported Allison missing.

  ‘I really didn’t, at the time, notice anything,’ she said.

  It seemed extraordinary. Others who encountered Gerard that morning noticed his scratches immediately. It was the reason police were on alert. It was one of the major reasons they were in court now. Yet the Duntroon-trained Walton – a former Intelligence Corps officer, no less – told the court she had not noticed anything remarkable about her brother’s appearance that morning.

  Fuller finished his questioning and defence barrister Michael Byrne rose. Mystifyingly, he began by calling Olivia ‘Mrs Baden Walton’. Byrne wanted to know more about Allison withdrawing socially.

  Olivia said she first noticed it when Allison and Gerard returned to Australia after their extended honeymoon: ‘I perceived Allison’s behaviour as quite odd and quite withdrawn, and whenever we visited their home it was always very dark and the curtains were always drawn. She didn’t engage in social activities as much as I remembered.’

  The worrying behaviour continued after the birth of their eldest daughter, Olivia continued, then related an incident in graphic detail. Olivia had picked up Allison and her daughter to go to playgroup. She strapped Allison’s daughter into the car seat ‘because she wasn’t confident to do that’. In the three-to five-minute drive to the playgroup venue, Allison became increasingly anxious.

  ‘We arrived at the playgroup, she opened the car door and vomited into the gutter and I noticed, as she got out of the car that she had lost control of her bladder as well,’ Olivia told the court.

  She took Allison home and helped her into bed, only realising later the incident was anxiety-related.

  Some of the jurors looked distressed.

  Walton, at Byrne’s request, went on to detail how Allison wouldn’t go to social events, leaving Gerard to take the children on his own. Another time, Allison broke her ankle and spent six weeks at Olivia’s house and ‘lay on the couch every day’. Olivia would do their washing and give them a meal. ‘And sometimes that would happen even after Allison’s ankle was healed, and before that too,’ she added.

  Olivia told of her surprise when Gerard started working from home for a period, ‘but we realised that it was because he was wanting to be at home with Allison’. For a couple of years her brother rarely went out in case Allison needed him. The ‘pressures of life seemed to be too much’ for Allison and she struggled to stick to the parenting routines she and Gerard had agreed on.

  Allison would ask Olivia to teach her how to cook and make meal plans. Gerard liked to have a routine where the children put themselves to sleep in their own bed without being coaxed or cuddled and ‘that was something that was just very difficult for Allison’.

  Byrne’s questioning about Allison’s depression went on. Allison’s family and friends were angry about the portrayal of Allison that emerged. As the defence QC emphasised the point about Allison’s struggles, some of the jurors shifted uncomfortably on their seats. One woman crossed her arms and shook her head as it continued.

  Fuller, in re-examination, asked Olivia to go through Allison’s employment. The answers highlighted Allison’s capability. She had been teaching resilience to children, was holding parties to sell Neways health products and was working in the real estate business. The busy schedule didn’t seem to leave much time for lying on c
ouches, as had been portrayed. Asked if there was anything about Allison’s mental state that concerned her when she disappeared, Olivia said the only thing that stood out was the possible effect of Gerard’s brother having a son.

  ‘She always had wanted a boy,’ Olivia told the court.

  Olivia left the stand, and it was Allison’s family’s turn. Priscilla Dickie got to her feet, bristling with nervous energy. She received unmistakable warm looks and sympathetic half-smiles from the jury as she confirmed she was the mother of Allison, born on 1 July 1968, a ‘very cold morning’. Priscilla recalled that when Allison herself had children, she turned to her for help and advice. After the birth of her first daughter, Priscilla stayed with Allison and Gerard for a while but was wary of upsetting her son-in-law.

  ‘I might’ve overstepped the mark at one or two times, because I was told by her husband, in no uncertain terms, that he was to bring up the children and not me; not to interfere, Grandma.’

  There was only one direction this testimony was going. Priscilla’s palpable anger towards Gerard was barely contained as she described arriving at Brookfield on 20 April and seeing the startling injuries on his face. Gerard was ‘calm as a cucumber’ and smartly dressed, Dickie remembered. Entering the house, she felt it looked sterile – much neater than normal. It struck her as strange that there were two teacups and saucers on the bench instead of the usual mugs, she said.

  Fuller, at pains to ensure the evidence didn’t spiral out of control, pulled Priscilla up short with a quick ‘all right’ when he felt she was going off track. The prosecutor inexplicably cut her off when Priscilla was about to tell the court how on the morning Allison vanished, as police milled around the house, Gerard had ushered the Dickies and Kerry-Anne Walker into the master bedroom and said he expected to be arrested. Priscilla twice tried to tell the story, only to be interrupted and redirected by Fuller. The jury would never hear the story.

  Michael Byrne’s first question for Priscilla was about Allison’s depression. Byrne asked Priscilla if she knew if Allison was diagnosed with a major depressive illness. Priscilla said no, Allison never complained, but added her daughter wasn’t able to talk in her former home at Kenmore because Gerard was always listening in: ‘The baby monitor was in the kitchen and Gerard was working in the garage. I couldn’t talk to Allison properly in the Gubberley Street kitchen because he, Gerard, could hear us in the garage. What sort of a life is that?’

  Byrne said at Christmas 2011, Kerry-Anne Walker had called Priscilla because she was worried about Allison. Priscilla rang Allison to check on her.

  ‘She told us that Gerard no longer loved her. I said, “Well come and live with us at the coast if you want to.” She said, “No way.” She wasn’t going to leave him. No, she loved him, and those girls of hers. She would never leave those girls.’

  Priscilla went to visit Allison and found her on the couch, dressed all in white. She made a point – perhaps for Nigel’s benefit – of mentioning twice that Allison was wearing white from head to toe: ‘I thought, my goodness what have you got all this white on you?’ Priscilla asked her daughter what was wrong, and Allison said she wanted to be a better person. ‘Now why would she want to be a better person?’ Priscilla wondered aloud.

  Byrne prompted Priscilla to recall that Allison had vials of liquid in the fridge door and had been injecting the concoction into her arm to get rid of fat.

  ‘Yes, because she wanted to be what Gerard wanted her to be. That’s what she wanted to be. And she tried everything she could for that man,’ Priscilla said.

  If she had been allowed to, Priscilla would no doubt have stood up in court and pointed to ‘that man’, Gerard, declaring him a killer. She didn’t go that far but those in court were left in no doubt who Priscilla Dickie held responsible for the death of her daughter.

  She did go so far as to point out during her testimony that even in life, he had failed to provide for Allison. ‘I was always very disappointed,’ Priscilla said of the fact the couple did not own their own home. ‘She had rented homes ever since they first got married. Never got a house of her own.’

  Priscilla had stood before the court determined to speak up for her daughter and she had done her very best. Her direct manner and staccato speech underlined the fact that – as the eldest of ten children – she was well used to getting her point across.

  In the overflow court upstairs, there was an extraordinary scene – at the end of her testimony, Allison’s mum was given a spontaneous standing ovation. She had been a circuit-breaker after days of heavy testimony about decomposition and depression.

  Geoff Dickie entered the witness box immediately after her and, in a deep, clear voice, told the court he noticed scratches on Gerard’s face as soon as he arrived at Brookfield on Friday 20 April. Geoff too tried to relay the conversation inside the master bedroom at the house, but Fuller stopped him. Geoff spoke only for a matter of minutes, saying lastly that Allison had been happy and ‘wonderful’ before she disappeared.

  After completing their evidence Allison’s parents were able to join friends and family in the public gallery, where they had seats waiting for them, as Kerry-Anne Walker was called to the stand.

  Byrne suggested Allison was a private person who kept things to herself, noting she had never told her friend of Gerard’s affair. Walker said she used to suggest Gerard may be having an affair but Allison dismissed it, saying she had asked her husband and he denied it: ‘I think she never told me about the affair because she knew that I would jump straight in and pull her straight out of there, and she didn’t want that. She wanted to work on her marriage. She loved her husband and adored her children.’

  Byrne asked if Walker knew Allison suffered depression over a lengthy period. Walker said Allison was open about it but more recently was not depressed. They had lots of discussions in the final months about how Allison was standing up for herself more, was becoming more assertive in the marriage and was positive and in control.

  Walker was not going to let Allison’s name be dragged through the mud unchallenged. Her friend was simply not the woman she was being painted as – dressed in black, lying around all day.

  To add to a day already filled with high drama, Toni McHugh was about to be questioned.

  Mistress

  Toni McHugh’s love for Gerard Baden-Clay had ruined her life. Her name was mud, so she’d had to take a new one. She had been living under an assumed name in a beachside town north of Brisbane, watching the minutes tick by to the trial that would expose her once again to a flood of condemnation, anger, even rage. More than just ‘the other woman’, McHugh was now also a motive for murder. Memories of the shame of her teenage years, when the girl from a strict Catholic family fell pregnant at 16, came flooding back. But this time a national audience was feeding on her shame. To add insult to injury, the man who had cost her everything had been sleeping around behind her back. A fool to boot. Everything had been lost or damaged – her comfy pad on the Brisbane River, her decent well-paying job in the state’s capital and her relationships with family and friends.

  McHugh had come to the uneasy conclusion Gerard must have killed Allison. She couldn’t see another explanation.

  As at the committal hearing, police had helped McHugh slip into Gerard’s trial without the abundant media setting eyes on her. The last witness on Monday 16 June, day four of the trial, she was wearing a striking blue silk oriental jacket over a white top, and her black hair was pulled back loosely.

  At times it appeared to take a supreme effort for her to answer the prosecutor’s questions. Her flat, carefully considered responses were often complimentary to her former lover. She had enjoyed her job at Century 21 Westside, and Gerard was a source of positive energy in the office. He was ‘excellent at motivating people, excellent at enhancing a team atmosphere’.

  There was more praise: ‘I admired him. I admired his drive. I admired his ability to really make people feel that they had something to contribute and th
at they were going to do well. He was an excellent teacher and I, you, know, felt that I had a fabulous basis to learn real estate.’

  In the dock, Gerard’s blank expression held no warmth for his former lover as she detailed the course of their passionate affair: the years of secret meetings and circuitous discussions about their future.

  ‘It was up and down all the time, year after year. He was adamant that he didn’t have a relationship with his wife … didn’t love his wife. But at the same time, he was never, ever disrespectful or callous or spiteful or hurtful. He was very fearful of Allison not being able to manage a separation or a divorce. He had voiced concerns about her mental strength. I was very aware of Allison’s depression from day one when Gerard told us all about her illness.’

  The ‘rollercoaster’ continued until Allison discovered the affair. McHugh became emotional in court when she recalled the moment Gerard dumped her. Clearly, it still hurt. Of her efforts to get him to reconsider, she said, ‘It was pointless. He just would say, “I’m sorry.”’

  Despite everything, she was ‘really very happy to see him’ after he contacted her shortly before Christmas 2011. Once the affair resumed, they were more careful with contacting each other but: ‘We’d try every day. It wasn’t always possible.’

  The last time they met before Allison’s death was at a Kelvin Grove coffee shop before McHugh had an interview for yet another job. Gerard said it was too hard for them to keep meeting, prompting a round of probing questions from McHugh about his plans. He said he was going to leave his wife by 1 July.

  Fuller showed the court emails between McHugh and Gerard, including one repeating the promise to leave his wife by 1 July.

  ‘I thought he’s just pulling a number out of thin air. In actual fact, I just didn’t believe it. I didn’t believe it at all,’ McHugh said.