Accused’s one- sided love for Jade’s mother
Tina Bayliss tells court she tried to end ties with man now facing murder charge
by Kurt Bayer Jeremy McLaughlin loved the mother of the 13- year- old girl he’s accused of murdering, but his love was unrequited, a court heard yesterday.
‘‘ Dingo’’ McLaughlin, 35, i s accused of strangling the schoolgirl with a piece of cord before stuffing socks in her mouth and dousing her Christchurch house in petrol and setting it ablaze.
Firefighters found Jade dead in the burning house on November 10, 2011.
The Waltham labourer denies murder, but has pleaded guilty to burglary and arson.
On the second day of the High Court murder trial in Christchurch, Jade’s mother, Tina Bayliss, continued her evidence.
She earlier told the court how her eldest child of three had ‘‘ no respect’’ for McLaughlin and had mocked his speech impediment.
Mrs Bayliss yesterday revealed that McLaughlin professed his love for her on the first day they met, while he was working a second job as door security at a Christchurch nightclub in September, 2011.
After dating for four to six weeks, Mrs Bayliss tried to break the relationship off.
The tipping point came when McLaughlin shouted at Jade after she wrote ‘‘ Ford’’ on the tag of his ‘‘ Holden’’ T- shirt while he was watching the Bathurst motor race on television.
But after that, the pair stayed in text contact for the month before Jade’s death.
Under cross- examination by McLaughlin’s lawyer, Margaret Sewell, Mrs Bayliss told the jury of seven women and five men how she tried to let him down gently.
She told him in text messages that she still didn’t want to see him, in the ‘‘ nicest way’’ she could, saying she wanted to focus on her children.
McLaughlin texted her to say he felt hurt, especially being given a ‘‘ Dear John’’ letter via text message.
‘‘ Love hurts, they say,’’ he texted her late in October, ‘‘ and I know it to be true now’’.
Mrs Bayliss told the court McLaughlin had liked her ‘‘ very much’’, and often cooked for her while she was at work, dropped her two younger children at school, and took them out.
She rejected claims that McLaughlin had been living with her, saying he used to ‘‘ turn up on my doorstep’’. McLaughlin’s friend and flatmate at the time of the murder, Jolon Sweeney, 41, is also on trial, charged with being an accessory after the fact of the burglary and arson and with attempting to obstruct the course of justice.