Allison Baden-Clay is dead, but maybe that’s her fault.
No, really. Maybe she brought it all on herself.
Allison knew that her husband, Gerard, had been having an affair with a woman from work and she was broken-hearted about it.
There’s no evidence that Allison was an angry or violent person, but on the night of her death, maybe she somehow got into a ferocious argument with Gerard, during which she reached out and attacked his face like a furious old cat, scratching him to ribbons.
Maybe poor old Gerard then had to defend himself, and maybe, in fighting off his petite wife, who weighed all of 55 kilograms, he accidentally killed her.
Maybe the poor soul was then so panicked, he just had to bundle Allison’s body into his car, and dump it off a bridge.
Maybe he then had to rush home and make nice in front of Allison’s three, sleepy little girls, because hey, he hadn’t meant to kill their Mum.
It just kind of happened.
It’s enough to make you sick, and yet that is the argument – the appalling argument – that the Queensland Court of Appeal has accepted, and that is why the same court has now ordered that Gerard Baden-Clay’s conviction for the murder of Allison be downgraded to manslaughter.
Maybe you’re thinking: but hang on a minute, a jury of 12 men and women, all good and true, sat through six long weeks of evidence and decided that Gerard was guilty of murder.
Gerard didn’t tell the jury that he got scratched up defending himself from an angry Allison.
He told them he cut himself shaving, and they didn’t believe him.
Gerard didn’t tell the jury that he rushed out and dumped the body in a panic. He told them that he had no idea how Allison ended up dead beneath a bridge near their home.
They didn’t believe him.
Now the Court of Appeal has said: ‘Well, okay, the jury may well have been convinced that Gerard was lying in court, and that he actually did kill Allison, but did he intend to do it?’
Because if he didn’t intend to do it, he’s not guilty of murder.
In a judgement that is truly sickening in its detail, the Queensland Court of Appeal said that Allison’s corpse – tragically for her – did not disclose a cause of death.
She didn’t have a broken neck, a crushed skull, or a bullet hole to the brain (bear that in mind, if you’re thinking of taking someone’s life: the fewer injuries, i.e., from smothering, the better things may go for you in court.)
The fact that no-one is really sure how Allison died means that nobody can say for certain that Gerard intended to take her life. According to the judgement, he may simply have “delivered a blow which killed her.”
Then, “in a state of panic and knowing that he had unlawfully killed her, he took her body to Kholo Creek in the hope that it would be washed away.”
Ugly, right?
There’s more: the judgement also says – and there is absolutely no evidence to back this up, by the way, since Gerard never said this – that Allison might have “attacked him, scratching his face” and – wait for it – in order “to make her stop, he killed her without intending to do so.”
See?
The poor bloke may have been trying to make her stop.
It’s a terrible day for the justice system, and it gets worse: how long do you think Queenslanders convicted of manslaughter typically serve? Ten years? Eight?
Try four.
That’s according to a study conducted in 2011, which also showed that most people convicted of manslaughter become eligible for parole after just three years.
Gerard could be out by next Christmas. What a happy holiday for Allison’s little girls.
