Photo forced Lamarre-Condon into 'damage control', court told

A friend of Beau Lamarre-Condon has told a jury how he went into "damage control" after using a photo of flowers from the internet in an Instagram post to falsely suggest he received the bouquet from television presenter Jesse Baird.

Mr Lamarre-Condon is on trial in the NSW Supreme Court, accused of shooting Mr Baird and his boyfriend, Luke Davies, with a police pistol in Mr Baird's home at Paddington, in Sydney's east, on February 19, 2024.

The 31-year-old has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and one of aggravated break and enter, and his lawyers have raised a self-defence argument.

The Crown's case is that Mr Lamarre-Condon developed a jealous infatuation with Mr Baird after being somewhat romantically involved with him from 2022, but that Mr Baird considered it casual and was allegedly stalked in the lead up to his death.

Jurors were on Tuesday read a large amount of messages between Mr Lamarre-Condon and Senior Constable Nicole Harvell, with whom he became close with after March 2023 following several shifts together.

She told the court their conversations were predominantly about Mr Baird and she was "being a bit of a counsellor" through what she thought was the defendant's paranoia that Mr Baird was not as interested as him.

The jury heard the accused told Ms Harvell it was his decision to "end it" with Mr Baird in April 2023, after seeing messages on his phone with another man.

She said Mr Lamarre-Condon knew the code to unlock Mr Baird's phone and had gone through it, while on another occasion a message had popped up while he had the phone for some reason.

Ms Harvell told the court after that apparent split, Mr Lamarre-Condon seemed satisfied with his decision but then appeared to become "quite fixated on Jesse".

In messages between the witness and the accused from May 2023, Mr Lamarre-Condon said Mr Baird was not viewing any of his Instagram stories and that he "wanted him to see me living my best life".

"I think he must have been going through it this week, his Spotify playlist is very depresso," he said in one message.

Ms Harvell said Mr Lamarre-Condon had previously logged into Mr Baird's Spotify account during a car trip with him and was still "actively monitoring … what had been played".

By October, Mr Lamarre-Condon had messaged Ms Harvell that Mr Baird was coming with him on a Bali trip and that he was "in a different place" and "really happy" in terms of the connection not being a relationship.

But Mr Baird cut things off firmly in mid-November, the jury has heard.

'Damage control'

Mr Lamarre-Condon uploaded a story to his Instagram account using the app's "close friends" function, which allows users to limit who can view the content.

The court has previously heard the post showed a bouquet of flowers with a caption reading "When he's in Melbourne but still sends you these." At the time, Mr Baird was in Melbourne but had not sent any flowers.

Ms Harvell said the accused told her he used a photo of flowers from the internet and tailored who could see the post in order to get other men to "back off", but someone had taken a screenshot and sent the post to Mr Baird, who confronted Mr Lamarre-Condon.

"The accused essentially went into damage control where he took the photo to a florist, paid the florist to replicate that bouquet exactly," she told the court.

"The accused got his mother to pose holding the bouquet with a handwritten note, acting like she got that from her partner."

Mr Lamarre-Condon spent $160 on the replica bouquet and told his mother what happened before asking her to pose, Ms Harvell said.

Ms Harvell said the defendant was initially "sticking to the story" but then attempted to contact Mr Baird to explain. Mr Baird blocked him.

In other messages after that development, Ms Harvell told the accused that Mr Baird had "caused you to do this".

She told the court today that she believed Mr Baird was "playing games a bit, playing with the accused's mind and heart".

"That caused the accused to get upset and do the things he did with the phone and the flowers," she said.