Former NSW Police officer Beau Lamarre-Condon has pleaded not guilty to murdering Sydney couple Jesse Baird and Luke Davies.<\/p>\n
The 30-year-old has been in custody since last February, when he was arrested after attending a Bondi police station following the pair’s disappearance.<\/p>\n
They were allegedly shot with a police-issued handgun in Mr Baird’s home in Paddington, in the city’s east, before their bodies were found the following week in surf bags at Bungonia, about 200 kilometres south.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Luke Davies (left) and Jesse Baird were allegedly killed by Beau Lamarre-Condon. (Supplied: Instagram)<\/p>\n
As he appeared via a video link today, Mr Lamarre-Condon’s lawyer entered pleas of not guilty to all charges \u2014 two counts of domestic violence-related murder and one of aggravated break and enter.<\/p>\n
The pleas follow repeated delays in the case over the last 18 months.<\/p>\n
The case has been committed for trial in the NSW Supreme Court, where there will be an arraignment in early October.<\/p>\n
Lamarre-Condon changed legal teams twice<\/p>\n
Mr Lamarre-Condon’s mother, Coleen Lamarre, was among those in the public gallery at the John Maddison Tower as the pleas were confirmed.<\/p>\n
Mr Lamarre-Condon has been on remand since his arrest and has changed legal teams twice.<\/p>\n
The most recent change was last month, when his previous counsel, Alex Terracini, withdrew from the matter.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sketch of Beau Lamarre-Condon appearing in court last year. (ABC News: Rocco Fazzari)<\/p>\n
At that stage, a representative for the Director of Public Prosecutions opposed another adjournment.<\/p>\n
But a magistrate decided Mr Lamarre-Condon should not lose the opportunity to speak with his new lawyers before entering pleas and it was in the interests of justice to allow another adjournment.<\/p>\n
Mr Baird, a former television presenter, and Mr Davies, who worked for Qantas as a flight attendant, were last seen at a pre-Mardi Gras party.<\/p>\n
The alarm was raised when a worker discovered unusual items in a skip bin at Cronulla, including bloodied clothing and possessions.<\/p>\n
Police said when officers went to Mr Baird’s home, they found a large amount of blood.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Floral tributes are seen at the Paddington residence of Jesse Baird in Sydney. (AAP: Bianca De Marchi)<\/p>\n
Mr Lamarre-Condon was arrested before the bodies were found.<\/p>\n
Police have said Mr Baird previously had a brief relationship with the former officer.<\/p>\n
The delays to the case were due to a combination of factors, including the first change in legal representation last year when Legal Aid was handed the matter.<\/p>\n
In November, a 50-page document was handed to the court explaining the need for a lengthy adjournment.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, Mr Lamarre-Condon was assessed by a forensic psychologist and the case was further adjourned for the previous defence team to receive a report, consider it, and seek instructions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former NSW Police officer Beau Lamarre-Condon has pleaded not guilty to murdering Sydney couple Jesse Baird and Luke…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,70724,70725,70726,44,4277,70727],"class_list":["post-96071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-beau-lamarre-condon","tag-jesse-baird","tag-luke-davies","tag-news","tag-nsw-police","tag-paddington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}