Baden-Clay’s wife murder conviction upheld

THE great-grandson of Scout movement founder Lord Baden-Powell was facing many more years behind bars today after Australia’s High Court re in s t a t e d hi s c o nv ic t i o n for the murder of his wife.

Gerard Baden-Clay, 47, had been convicted in 2014 of murdering former Queensland beauty queen Allison, 43, but his life term was downgraded after his lawyers convinced an appeal court that it was possible he had not intended to kill her during an argument.

The couple appeared to have had the perfect marriage until he began an affair with a woman in the est ate agent’s office where he worked. In April 2012 Baden-Clay called police to say his wife was missing.

Her body was later found in a creek about 10 miles from their home at Brookfield, west of Brisbane.

Baden-Clay was originally sentenced to life with a minimum of 15 years after a jury found him guilty of murder. He succeeded in having the conviction reduced to manslaughter before the prosecution appealed.

Allison’s long-time friend, Kerry-Anne Walker, said today’s High Court’s ruling that the murder conviction should stand “comes with both relief and elation”. “The law has acknowledged what we, who were closest to her, knew from that very morning Allison went missing — that is —she was murdered. Gerard Baden-Clay murdered his amazing wife Allison.”

She added that the High Court’s ruling brought an end to “Gerard’s attempts to smear Allison’s name”.

Baden-Clay often spoke proudly to friends of his great-grandfather Lord Baden-Powell, a lieutenant-general in the British Army. He had served in India and Africa before founding the scouting movement in 1908.

Baden-Clay’s links to Lord BadenPowell go back to the peer’s marriage to Olave, when they became the parents of three children, one of whom married Gervas Clay in 1936.