by David Murray
At first Gerard stuck to the deal, but before long the repayments stopped. His finances, after a temporary reprieve, were in dire straits, and his private life was about to be in even worse shape.
The last to know
Brookfield State School’s annual trivia night always drew a good crowd. Gerard was usually front and centre, helping with an auction to raise money for the school. Getting into the spirit one year, he and Allison and the rest of their table had dressed as characters from the movie Top Gun. But on Friday 9 September 2011, he was late and Allison wasn’t around either. No one seemed to know if he was going to turn up, and back-up plans were being made for the auction in case he didn’t arrive.
Phill Broom was there with his friend Jeff Lock, who was on the school P & C with Gerard. Broom had quit Century 21 Westside on the previous Saturday. The day he left, Broom told Gerard he liked to think some day they would run into each other in a bar and have a drink together. Salesman John Bradley – whose engagement party had been instrumental in the affair being exposed in Gerard’s office – quit the same day.
At the trivia night, Gerard arrived at the last minute and did the auction. He and Broom didn’t cross paths. But another former Century 21 staff member was in the room and approached Broom.
‘How long have you known about the affair?’ she asked, in earshot of other parents. For so long, Gerard had managed to keep the affair from Allison. But now it was being discussed at the school trivia night.
The next week it was all over the school tuckshop too. Broom’s friend Jeff Lock was on the tuckshop roster. Lock would remember one of the mums asking after the welfare of Broom, and replying that all may not have been as it seemed. Details are unclear but someone brought up Gerard’s affair. In the afternoon, one of the mums ran into Wendy Mollah at school pick-up and told her about the affair too. She was Allison’s friend, and her heart sank.
Mollah was a single mum of two and author of a book on how to get children through divorce and separation. She drove home and spent the night dwelling on the awful rumour. The next morning she knew what she had to do, and phoned Allison.
Gerard was in a staff meeting at the office when Allison rang his mobile. ‘We’ve got to talk,’ she said.
He knew instantly from her tone what the talk would be about. They agreed to meet at a McDonald’s restaurant down the road, at Indooroopilly. He drove his Lexus – they called the car ‘Midi’, which Gerard liked to say stood for midlife crisis. Allison drove the Prado, ‘Snowy’. Gerard arrived first and Allison parked behind him. He got out of the car and went and sat in the passenger seat beside her. She asked him straight out: ‘Are you having an affair with Toni?’
He said, ‘Yes’, that he had been.
He’d later describe her reaction as disbelief. She got out of the car, in shock, and sat on the concrete kerb. She was shaking her head, saying, ‘I can’t believe this.’ When she had asked him in the past if he was sleeping with anyone else, he had denied it, and she believed him. Her head was in her hands. Gerard thought she would vomit, but she didn’t. When she regained her composure enough to speak again, she asked him, ‘Do you love her?’
When he replied, ‘No’, Allison told him he had to make a choice – her or me. Instantly, he said he wanted to be with Allison and their girls. So she told him to end it: ‘Now.’
Allison wanted McHugh out of the business from that moment on. He put his arm around her shoulders and she shrugged him off.
Straightaway, Gerard phoned McHugh and this time he was the one saying they needed to talk. They arranged to meet at her St Lucia apartment, where he told McHugh that Allison had found out and had given him an ultimatum. He said Allison had told him it ‘wouldn’t be pretty for him’ if he made the wrong decision. The affair was over, he told her.
There was no discussion or bargaining; he was dumping McHugh and she didn’t have a say in it. McHugh was as shocked as Allison, calling Gerard every name under the sun.
Gerard returned to Century 21 Westside at Taringa, sent out a group email saying McHugh wouldn’t be returning, and set about calling his staff into his office, one at a time, to explain. It must have been an excruciating and embarrassing moment for his staff as Gerard told them he had been sleeping with McHugh and his wife had found out.
Gerard told receptionist Gabrielle Cadioli a different story to the one he had told his wife. ‘He said it would be very difficult for him. He said [of McHugh], “I love her.”’
When Ben Bassingthwaighte phoned McHugh to check on her, she was hysterical.
‘Toni has said to me basically that Allison knows about the affair and was uncontrollably crying and upset. She was saying that Gerard had broken up the relationship and that he is gutless for breaking up with Toni and for not leaving Allison,’ he said.
Gerard, separately, confided to Bassingthwaighte that McHugh took the split badly. ‘Gerard told me that Toni had made a comment to him about their sexual relationship … Toni was berating him saying the sex was good but he is just an idiot.’
Jocelyn Frost, although no longer in the office, was informed about the dramatic turn of events and was immediately concerned. Having previously been close to McHugh, she knew perhaps better than anybody how badly Gerard’s mistress would take being dumped, and was worried she would take her own life. ‘Unfortunately, she can’t manage without him. I was a support for her at that time and she was screaming and crying and had her two sons with her,’ Frost told police.
A fuming McHugh went on a witch-hunt to find out exactly how Allison had learnt of the affair. Gerard said it came out because Phill Broom told Jeff Lock. McHugh phoned Broom and left a message on his voicemail: ‘I can’t believe Jeff would have told the tuckshop mums,’ she wailed into the phone.
Broom was on a mini-break in Auckland with his wife, having flown out of Brisbane the previous day. Just when he thought he was free, he was dragged back in by McHugh’s call. Gerard had tried to phone him too, but hadn’t left a message.
Broom returned McHugh’s call. ‘She was not in a very good state. She was crying.’
About three weeks after learning of the affair, Allison made an appointment with Dr Nicholas Bourke at the Kenmore Clinics medical centre. She had previously consulted Bourke about her depression. Now, upset, she told the doctor of the turmoil in her marriage.
‘Recent discovery of husband’s infidelity. Obviously distressing. Has discussed with him relationship counselling and both are keen for this,’ Bourke wrote in his notes from the appointment of 6 October 2011.
Allison asked Dr Bourke for tests for Hepatitis B and C, HIV, syphilis, chlamydia and gonorrhea. She didn’t have any symptoms, but who knew what Gerard had been up to.
Although Allison would conceal the affair from some of her closest friends, in the privacy of the doctor’s surgery she reached out for help. She was struggling to cope, she told the doctor.
Under the section in his medical notes to record the reason for the visit, Bourke wrote: ‘Counselling relationship’. Bourke scrapped Allison’s daily 50mg Zoloft tablet and wrote out a new prescription, doubling the dosage to help her through the crisis. Allison needed more than medication, so the doctor wrote a referral to counsellor Rosamond Nutting from the Bardon Counselling and Natural Therapy Centre.
Allison didn’t accept Gerard’s word that the affair was over. She began keeping tabs on her husband and monitoring his mobile phone. She told Gerard she wanted to see all his text messages and to know everyone he was calling. And from now on, she was going to work in the office too. Allison started at Century 21 Westside almost straightaway. It took a supreme effort to walk in to the office when everyone knew of Gerard’s affair.
To reassure her, Gerard installed an app, Find My Friends, on both their phones. The app would allow her, through GPS tracking, to check his precise location at any time via his phone. The password Allison chose for the app, and shared with Gerard, was: ‘ilovegwee’. It was a sad and girlish code for a program designe
d to track her cheating husband.
When she recovered from the initial shock, McHugh bombarded Gerard with phone calls and texts. He had chosen the wrong woman, she said, and pleaded with him to reconsider. He didn’t respond. Eventually, McHugh stopped trying and accepted their relationship was over.
Frost tried to help her friend, getting her a new job in real estate. ‘But she couldn’t cope without Gerard,’ said Frost. ‘She was devastated that Gerard had cut it off.’
Amid all this turmoil, and with the wounds still fresh, the two women in Gerard’s life inadvertently crossed paths. McHugh was with a personal trainer at Workout, a suburban gym on Witton Road, Indooroopilly. She looked up to see Allison and her youngest daughter at the front counter.
‘I froze and tried to continue the conversation with the trainer as long as possible, hoping she would leave,’ Toni said.
Afterwards, within minutes of each other, both women fired abusive text messages at Gerard.
Broke and broken
December 2011
Dr Bruce Flegg had long been a connoisseur of fine wines, and often he would select choice bottles as gifts for friends. In the lead-up to Christmas 2011, he had just such a present for Gerard Baden-Clay and phoned to let him know. Gerard invited Flegg to his office, saying he had something he needed to talk about.
Flegg had a sinking feeling when he parked in one of the visitor spaces at the front of Century 21 Westside at Taringa. It was the first time he had been to the new premises, and as he stepped out of his car and took in his surroundings, he thought it was a dreadful location for a real estate agency. Not only was it far removed from the loyal customers who frequented its original Kenmore home, there wasn’t a single other attraction to draw people past the window, not even a café.
Inside, a far from festive Gerard accepted his gift, in its jolly Christmas paper. Flegg was taken aback by Gerard’s tense, almost aggressive mood. It was a side to Gerard that he had not previously seen. They had barely exchanged the pleasantries of the season when Gerard asked for money.
Flegg asked Gerard how much he needed and his eyebrows arched at the response. Gerard wanted $400,000 to buy out his business partners. Flegg knew people sometimes looked at him and saw a man with deep pockets, but his money was invested wisely. Flegg was frugal and didn’t take wild risks, which is exactly how the wealthy become wealthy and, more importantly, stay wealthy. He asked Gerard if he was looking for an equity partner. Gerard’s answer was unequivocal: he wanted the money as an unsecured loan.
Strangely, for someone asking such a significant favour, Gerard wouldn’t tell Flegg who his business partners were. Gerard’s secrecy was a red flag.
It almost guaranteed Flegg wouldn’t take the request seriously. Had it been a successful business, Flegg might have been able to find someone to invest. However, they would want to look at the books and that wasn’t an option.
Over their years on the chamber of commerce together, Flegg had grown to know and like Gerard, but this request was out of left field. People always had deals on offer. This was different. It was like something you would ask of a family member.
Flegg knew Gerard was particularly close to his father, Nigel, and would be desperate not to let his parents down. Gerard’s parents were proud of their successful son. A business failure would be devastating – Gerard would rather die than fail. But Flegg could see that was exactly what was on the cards.
Having already taken full ownership of the sales side of the business, Gerard was now desperate for the money to buy out Jocelyn Frost and Ben Bassingthwaighte from the rental side of the business. Frost had long since moved to a different agency and Bassingthwaighte was on his way out the door to become a police officer.
Frost and Bassingthwaighte agreed to sell Gerard their shares in the rental business for $200,000 and $100,000 respectively. Gerard had until 30 June 2012 to pay in full. If he failed to find the cash or to make agreed interest payments, the contract would be void.
Gerard viewed Flegg as his big hope for making the payment, but would have to settle for the Christmas wine. ‘I really can’t help you,’ Flegg said, apologising.
The pressure on Gerard was piling up at work and at home. It had been an awful year. The flood had smashed his business, he’d parted ways with his business partners, Allison had found out about his affair, he’d cut loose his lover and staff had either walked out or been retrenched. Neither his business nor his personal affairs looked likely to improve.
Gerard had stayed with Allison, despite his earlier promises to McHugh. Keeping the marriage alive allowed him to live permanently with his daughters and to prevent what was left of his business being carved in two in a settlement. The trade-off was that he’d handed over control in the relationship to Allison.
He wanted to see Toni.
I’m yours
The Gailey Road Fiveways at Taringa is a little strip of shops that was just down the road from Century 21 Westside. Close enough for a quick trip without arousing suspicions, but out of the way enough for it to be unlikely he would be spotted. In a low-key café, alongside a chemist, bakery and butcher, Gerard sat opposite Toni McHugh for the first time in three months. After flatly ignoring all McHugh’s attempts to make contact since he unceremoniously cut her from his life, Gerard had a change of heart and phoned her, out of the blue, in December 2011. Allison couldn’t watch Gerard every hour of the day, and he told McHugh he wanted to talk.
Over coffee, Gerard declared that he wasn’t leaving his wife but still loved McHugh. He wanted to say sorry, to patch things up. McHugh could have told Gerard where to go. He had humiliated her every bit as much as he had humiliated his wife. But Toni loved him.
She was sold, and Gerard soon had what he wanted. The affair, killed off so abruptly in September, reignited.
In the months that followed, the pair would talk frequently, picking moments when Allison couldn’t discover the affair had resumed. Toni would call Gerard several times a week and, taking the utmost care to be discreet, they would see each other. Meeting at a coffee shop in Kelvin Grove in February, they discussed their future together. Gerard told Toni he was going to leave Allison, and even set a date.
‘Gerard told me that he was committed to our relationship and stated that he would be out of his marriage by the 1st of July 2012,’ Toni later revealed to police.
Some may have found Gerard’s self-imposed deadline less than passionate – how businesslike to plan to leave his wife by the start of the new financial year. But tax wasn’t the only significance of that date. He had promised to begin a new life with his mistress on his wife’s birthday.
Every couple of weeks Gerard and Toni would meet at a coffee shop, always during office hours. He told her he would come to her, unconditionally. After one of these meetings, they were unable to restrain themselves and retreated to a parked car for sex.
As part of her plan to both reconnect with her husband and keep an eye on him – and to help support the struggling business; it was, after all, the source of her family’s livelihood – Allison had started working at the Century 21 office as general manager. Other staff had ensured, at Gerard’s request, that any remnants of McHugh’s time there were removed before Allison arrived. Allison set herself up, perhaps deliberately, at McHugh’s old desk. And she had Gerard on a strict 5.30 pm curfew.
There was, however, a window of opportunity Gerard and Toni exploited. Allison would usually leave the office about 2.30 pm to collect the girls from school, so the lovers had a few hours for assignations and phone calls before Gerard had to be home. They didn’t exchange texts because Allison demanded to see every message Gerard received. Email became the conduit for their passionate exchanges. For some time Gerard had been secretly using an email account under his alias, Bruce Overland. Toni would email ‘Bruce’ once or twice a day. They’d talk about how much they loved each other and when they could be with each other.
Toni may have appeared to have wholeheartedly taken Gerard
back but she was now far less inclined to be pacified by his promises. In an email on 20 February 2012 to the Bruce Overland address, she spelt out her frustrations:
‘Well you’ll have to forgive me that I feel disappointed when this happens. I’m sick of hiding … I’m sick of being second best and having to take the back seat … all so she doesn’t find out. Why should I believe things are going to be any different than the past. I shouldn’t … that’s the reality. She gave you an ultimatum and you honoured it ??? If I were to do the same tomorrow … I doubt you’d be able to pay me the same respect. Why should I accept anything less than she would? All I’m doing at the moment is pacifying your Fucked Relationship!! That’s not fair G.’
Every now and again, Gerard said he wanted to put their physical intimacy on hold while he was still with his wife. McHugh would agree. Yet they kept ending up in each other’s arms.
‘These conversations would then lead to discussions about our future together,’ Toni told police. ‘Gerard had told me during a conversation that we had in March 2012 that he thought Allison was aware of his intentions to leave, however he did not elaborate any further.’
The last time the lovers would see each other alone, before everything changed, was in the middle of March. Gerard visited McHugh at her unit. They talked about how hard it was to stay in contact. Once again, they agreed they wouldn’t have sex until they could be together like a normal couple.
Gerard was trying to save his business and needed to focus. ‘Without that, he would not be able to provide anyone with a future,’ Toni said.
