by David Murray
During the period of the search, we waited and prayed with family and friends at the Brookfield Showground. We waited day after day, and at the end of each day, when the sun was setting and the light was fading, we left with the thought that we were leaving our daughter alone at night, lying somewhere exposed to the elements.
Our worst fears were realised when her body was discovered. Her death has not only affected our lives, but extends to our immediate family, extended family and friends. No matter what the future holds, our lives will never be the same until the day I die. But I will strive to live life to the maximum due to the fact that I have the immense privilege of caring for Allison’s three magnificent daughters who unfortunately do not have the voice to express their feelings about the loss of their mother to the Court. After two years of living and caring for the girls, I would not change my life with them for anything unless I could bring Allison back to care for them herself.
We gain inspiration from three strong, resilient young girls because we want them to live a life like the life that Allison would have wanted for them. On the night of the 19th April, 2012, they said goodnight to their mother and went to bed. They woke up the next morning to find her missing forever. They did not have the chance to say goodbye.
When they are hurt physically or mentally, they cannot call out for mummy, and she will be absent from special occasions, such as weddings, birth of children, Mother’s Day, Christmas, birthdays. When other children are talking about their mother, the girls can only absorb the pain and disappointment.
They will grow up into beautiful, intelligent young women who will be strong and contribute to society, because they are a product of their mother’s character and love, but they will be without the most important person in their lives, to share triumphs and disappointments.
From time immemorial, it is a known fact that a father’s duty is to protect and care for his daughter. Due to the mistreatment and subsequent murder of my beautiful daughter, I have failed in my duty as a father and I will have to live with that for the rest of my life.
He asked me for my daughter’s hand in marriage and I gave him my permission, but I didn’t give you permission to betray her. We accepted you into our family and you abused our trust with your lies and deceit.
I am devastated, incensed and outraged by the way you have damaged and sullied the memory of my daughter’s life by your statements and innuendos when she is not here to defend herself, adding to the pain and suffering of our family.
The girls’ father has taken their mother from them forever and I trust that justice will be served for my daughter Allison, and that he gets the sentence that he deserves.
Allison, I love you and miss you and you will be forever in my heart.
At the end he stared directly at the dock, but Gerard’s head was down.
Vanessa Fowler had promised Allison at her funeral that the questions around her death would be answered. Now Vanessa could finally bare her fury at the man who had taken her sister’s life and denigrated her in death.
My name is Vanessa Anne Fowler and I am the elder sister of the late Allison Baden-Clay. Our Allison left this earth on 19th April, 2012, under horrific circumstances at such a young age. As Allison’s sister, I was devastated and deeply affected by her death.
I feel cheated that I never got to say goodbye. I have been robbed of a life together with my sister. We will never get to have that one last cup of coffee together, or exchange parenting advice and share highlights of our children’s lives. I miss her, the way she smiled, I look at her photo and wonder what could have been. Her life, her dreams, were cut short and the lives of many changed forever.
Since that day I have changed my life and that of my family dramatically, moving from the Gold Coast to Brisbane in mid 2012. This move was in support of my parents in their care for Allison’s three daughters and to accommodate the girls’ return to their school, giving them some continuity in their lives.
My role in the family has changed from being the eldest daughter to being a support and carer for my three nieces, with the understanding that in addition to this responsibility, which I have willingly taken on, I have a husband and two children of my own for which to care. My husband changed offices and now drives over an hour to work each way, my children have attended three different schools in the last two years, which has been disruptive to their education and my university studies were interrupted. Due to the events of the 19th April, 2012, my life has been turned upside down and changed forever.
Allison inspired me to be a better person, a better mother. She loved life, loved her daughters, and was loved by all. Allison was extremely capable, hardworking, highly intelligent, strong, resilient, passionate, devoted, confident and generous and had much better dress sense than I, always wearing smart, elegant clothing, in all colours.
With four businesses on the go – real estate, Neways, Pathways and her ballet school – three children to care for, and two mistresses to deal with, all made for one very strong woman. I find it amazing that with everything else she had going on that she still found time to lie on the couch.
Allison never allowed depression to take over her life. She was never so debilitated that she could not function. Like any other mother with three children and a household to run, she was busy, tired and stressed.
I worked with Allison through Pathways. We were a team. We talked about starting a business partnership together, she would work in the Brisbane West area schools and I would do the Gold Coast. She was passionate about building resilience and teaching social and emotional skills to young children and in doing so she changed the lives of so many.
Our lives move forward, we continue with our day to day living, however there is still a hole, a dark void left inside us where Allison touched each of us. We remember her smile, her laughter, her friendship and her love – for this is how she lived her life, always trying to please others and putting others before herself.
My heart breaks for the three precious girls who have been left behind. They look for their mother, cry for their mother, they miss their mother, they loved their mother. To help them deal with the fact that their mother is not coming back, to know that they didn’t get to say goodbye, and now to know that their mother has been taken away from them at the hand of their father, is unimaginable.
When I have a little girl snuggle up to me and say ‘Aunty Ness, I miss Mummy,’ I feel great sadness. My heart sinks and I am even more determined to make their lives happy and full of love, just as Allison would have wanted. Despite the stresses in her life, Allison’s care of her children was her utmost priority and she still sang to her beautiful babies as she put them to bed each and every night.
During this trial, there has been an over-emphasis and over-exaggeration on the negative aspects of her life yet we who knew her best know that there are far more positives in her life to focus on. Due to the events which occurred on 19th April, 2012, she is not here to defend herself. She no longer has a voice and in this trial she has been ridiculed, degraded, belittled, demoralised and disrespected. This was inflicted on her by her husband in life and now in death.
Allison was the only bright light in a very dark place that you and those around you created for her. One thing that we have seen from this trial is that Allison was strong and she fought to the death, even when taking the last breath she left her mark to ensure you paid for your evil ways.
It is because of you that I stand here today without a sister. It is because of you that I will never see her delightful smile again. It is because of you that three young girls have no mother. It is because of you that Allison will never get to see her children grow up. It is because of you that numerous lives have been changed forever.
You have shown no remorse for Allison’s death. While Allison lay cold, wet and alone out in the elements under a bridge, you enjoyed sleeping in a warm bed, having lavish lunches, dinner dates and in your own words it was ‘business as usual’, with no regard or c
oncern for your missing wife or the future of three young girls who now face the future without their mother.
But I am not going to allow this statement to be all about you. This is about me and my sister, my sister who today, for the first time since she married you, has come out on top. Today, she is the hero, she is the one who has received justice. The impact that my sister’s death has had on my family is indescribable and no one will ever know what we experience every day but we willingly continue forward as we know that everything we do is for Allison’s three girls and Allison’s legacy.
It has been proven here today that Allison did not take her own life, she did not just ‘go for a walk and died’. Allison was a strong, bright and determined woman that just wanted the best for her family. She had an inner strength and endured without complaint more than anyone should ever have had to endure. Some terrible lies have been told about Allison over the past few weeks. A picture painted that could not be further from the truth.
As a result of this trial, some pieces of the puzzle have been matched together and some of the many questions answered, however there is still much more that will remain hidden. Only two people know the answer to those questions – one is dead at the hand of the other.
I hope that justice will be served in more ways than one as my family, including three young girls, are the ones with the life sentence of living without Allison and knowing that her life was cut short because of greed and self-satisfaction.
My life and that of my family will never be the same again and it is my hope that the convicted murderer will be given a lifetime to ponder his actions in taking the life of such a special woman, whose only crime was to love and be loved.
Gerard moved his head violently back and forth as Vanessa spoke. He was shaking and rocking in the dock as if her words were physical blows. And as strongly worded and powerful as Vanessa’s statement was, it was actually a second draft, after the prosecution had asked her to tone down her raw, original missive during an earlier review process.
It was Ashley Dickie’s turn next. Allison’s brother and his wife, Lisa, had rushed to the court but found the doors closed and security blocking their way. He would not be allowed in to face his sister’s killer and see him sentenced. Instead, Vanessa read aloud Ashley’s victim impact statement to the court. He was a man of few words, but his brief message said it all.
My name is Ashley James Dickie and I am Allison’s brother. Allison was a wonderful sister, she was older than me and I loved her gentle heart and her kind nature. We miss her and we think about her every day and how we will never see her again.
Al loved and adored our children, who are now 10 and 7. She will never see their achievements. Their graduations, weddings, everything. She will miss it all.
It is unbearable to think of how she was taken away from my family. Nothing will ever be the same. Our Easters, birthdays, Christmas, will never be the same without her there.
I still find it hard to believe she is gone. My life has been changed forever because of one man’s selfish actions. A man who thinks only of himself and whose actions were only to benefit one person himself.
I know you did it and you know you did it. And whatever time you spend in jail will never be enough for taking the life of my beautiful sister Allison.
It wasn’t over yet for Gerard. After objectively presiding over all of the evidence, Justice John Byrne condemned Gerard for murdering Allison and everything that followed:
‘Gerard Baden-Clay, on the night of 19 April 2012, you murdered your wife, Allison,’ Justice Byrne said.
The killing was not premeditated, but it was violent. That night you were under considerable stress. Your financial circumstances were, as you confessed to police, dire. Your domestic circumstances were no better.
You had resumed your affair with Toni McHugh. You kept telling her that you loved her. You led her to understand that you intended to leave Allison and to be with her.
That afternoon you told Ms McHugh that Allison would be at the conference Ms McHugh was to attend in Brisbane the next day. Allison knew nothing about the resumption of the affair. You deceived her into believing it had ended in September 2011. If the two women were to meet the next day, the consequences could have been dramatic, as you realised.
Your unsuspecting wife was doing her best to maintain the marriage. The relationship counsellor had devised a plan. It allowed for Allison to express to you her feelings about the affair in the brief session every second day. You agreed, reluctantly, to that.
The first session happened the night before Allison died. It had turned into an interrogation. Allison remained tormented by the affair. She pressed you for details. On the night she died, Allison again questioned you about the affair.
All the pressures proved too much for you.
The prosecution suggested that you smothered Allison. That looks likely. But whatever the mechanism, your violent attack caused her death. Her fingernails scratched your face, the act of a desperate woman, struggling for life. Those marks are only consistent with your guilt.
Your shameful conduct after murdering Allison bespeaks a profound absence of remorse. You took her body to Kholo Creek. There you disposed of her in an undignified way, dumping her over the ledge to leave her lying in mud, exposed to the elements, insects. Then you put in place, and persisted in, a deception.
You used a razor to cut yourself near where she scratched you, trying to disguise the injury she had inflicted in defending herself. You drove around the streets of Brookfield, pretending to look for her.
You have insinuated her mental illness may have led to drug overdose or suicide. And besmirching Allison’s memory in that way is thoroughly reprehensible.
You have no criminal history but you are definitely not of good character. You are given to lies and other deception, so much so that whatever you may say on any application for parole, 15 years or more hence, will need to be assessed with considerable scepticism.
The community, acting through the court, denounces your lethal violence. The impacts on Allison’s family have been grave. Their impact statements poignantly express their pain. You took a devoted, loving mother from her three girls, blighting their lives.
The law provides but one penalty for your willful crime. I impose it. You are sentenced to imprisonment for life.
Justice Byrne, like almost everyone else, could not ignore the scratches on Gerard’s face. In her final act, Allison had caught her own killer.
After the verdict, Allison’s family and friends emerged as one into the sunshine and gathered in the forecourt to release a flotilla of yellow balloons. As the balloons floated off into the sky, one in their number remarked, ‘Bye Al’. Walking over to Santos House, they caught the lift to the 34th floor and met in the conference room. Police joined them. Looking out at the spectacular view of the Brisbane River, a flash of yellow caught their eye. One of the balloons had lodged outside the window. After some emotional speeches, Priscilla and Geoff had the difficult task of going home to tell the girls. Others retired to a bar up the road from the courts for a ‘debrief’; the venue was appropriately named The Guilty Rogue.
At the end of the night, one of the detectives got home and woke the house singing, ‘Gerard fought the law and the law won …’
Dear Gerard
Three days after Allison discovered Gerard’s affair with Toni McHugh, she started writing a letter. She worked on it for several months, pouring out her feelings. Uncovered by Channel 7’s Sunday Night program after Gerard was convicted, the letter shows Allison at her most raw. The letter recorded Allison’s shock at Gerard’s years of deceit. She was bewildered that she could have misjudged him so. Gerard had been a comfortable and skilful liar. The letter also shows Allison was standing up for herself. Although she desperately wanted to save her marriage, Allison was realistic too. Friends are sure she was making back-up plans so that if Gerard followed through on his threats and walked out, she could support the girls on her ow
n. As evidence that Allison was moving towards self-sufficiency, they point to her involvement in the Pathways resilience program, selling Neways products, ballet teaching, investigating business opportunities with Wendy Mollah and going to real estate courses without telling Gerard. Some of her friends believe she may have put a deposit on a property.
Dear Gerard,
As 2011 comes to a close I wanted to write to you about the year that was and more. This is not meant to be a ‘put Gerard down’ list neither do I want it to be a ‘poor me’ letter. My aim is to start the New Year with a fresh start and no longer talk about the affair except in counselling. So I wanted to get as much off my chest as I possibly could. Also I just want to get my thoughts in some sort order for my own sake to clarify what it is that really matters to me.
I started writing this document on September 17, 2011. Three days after you told me you had an affair. Some things are just snippets of thoughts, some paragraphs etc. You have heard a lot of it before and perhaps answered some of the questions before in the heat of the moment. But I have tried to limit my questions and really would like you try think about them before you answer on paper. I have tried to categorise some things but without much success I’m afraid. It is my hope that you will really read the following pages and where I have asked answer some questions for me (on paper) and with as much thought and clarity as you can. This I believe will truly help me. Well here goes …
… 3 days ago my husband told me he was having an affair. I get sick just writing the words and am shaking my head as I cannot believe it still. Tonight he has told me it has been going on for more than three years and that he lied to my face that it wasn’t happening. I am writing this to try and work it all out in my head. At the moment I am trying to work out what I have done to deserve it – I just don’t know. God I just want to be happy – one day I want to just be happy …