4.10pm: The 27th witness in the trial is Gerard Baden-Clay’s father, Nigel Baden-Clay.
Mr Baden-Clay corrected Crown prosecutor Todd Fuller QC when he mispronounced Gerard’s name. “We christened him Gerard,” he said.
He said he lived with his wife on Durness St at Kenmore since 1997 and that he thought his son met his wife at Flight Centre in 1996.
He said he saw his son at least once a week and helped him periodically with his real estate business since 2003.
“In the early years we worked together and helped him set up his real estate business,” he said.
Mr Baden-Clay said his son set up his own business - Century 21 Westside - in October, 2004 and he worked there as a sales person.
He said his wife assisted in the office, as well as did reception work and “prospecting”.
“I was retired at the end of 2009,” he said, adding that after that he helped to put up and take down signage. He said his daughter-law, Allison, helped with the business, too.
Mr Baden-Clay said he put real estate signs up on April 19, 2012 after collecting them from the car port of his son’s house.
“I’d get up early and probably be there by half past six,” he said.
He said his grandson was with him at the time.
“He and his mother and his siblings were down visiting from Townsville. They moved up there in July, 2011 and so it would have been 10 months later,” he said.
He said Olivia Walton was his daughter.
Mr Baden-Clay said he could not remember if he went inside the Baden-Clay house on the morning of April 19, 2012.
He said he drove a Holden Statesman with a personalised plate that read “Bwana”.
Mr Baden-Clay said he was at his son’s house on April 18, 2012 to babysit because he and Allison wanted to “go out for a coffee”.
He said the children were already in bed.
“I think they were only gone for about half an hour, they weren’t that long, half an hour, three-quarters of an hour,” he said.
Mr Baden-Clay said he couldn’t remember what his son and daughter-in-law’s mood was like when they returned because he was “engrossed in a TV show”.
He said they were celebrating the birth of a new grandson that night, too.
Mr Baden-Clay said on the afternoon of Thursday, April 19, 2012 his son dropped by his home at Durness St with some sausages for a barbecue they had planned.
He said his son returned about 5pm or 5.30pm for the barbecue and told him his wife would not be coming.
“As normal I suppose,” he said of his son’s mood.
He said his son left the house with his girls in the Prado he usually drove around 6.30pm.
“The next contact that I had with him was the next morning,” Mr Baden Clay said.
He said he took a Skype call from his youngest son in Canada to meet his new baby at 6.30am.
He said the family woke up to greet the baby when he had a separate call from his son, Gerard.
“Gerard said to me `dad I don’t want to alarm you, but have you seen Allison?’, and I said `no’ and he said `well, she hasn’t come back from her walk yet and I’m a bit worried for her’,” Mr Baden-Clay said.
He told the jury he and his daughter Olivia Walton got dressed and drove off in different directions. “I went straight to the house,” he said.
Mr Baden-Clay said both the cars were in the driveway when he arrived at his son’s home, the Captiva in the carport with the bonnet facing out towards the road.
“I think normally it was facing out,” he said.
“I went straight up the stairs and Gerard met me at the door and the girls were there in various states of dress and readiness for school. He was in his suit without a jacket on at that point.”
He said he noticed a cut on his cheek.
“I said ‘what is that?’ and he said ‘I cut myself shaving this morning in my hurry to get ready’,’’ he said.
Mr Baden-Clay said they did not talk about Allison being missing because his son “wanted to get going to look for her”.
He said his son took the Captiva to go looking for his wife around 7.10am.
“He would have been away about half an hour I think,” he said.
Mr Baden-Clay said he was in the lounge room when his son returned.
“I spoke with him but we wanted to be careful of not alarming the girls at all so by this time, as far as I could recollect, Gerard had already phoned the police and they said they would send a patrol down and we were anxious to get the girls out of the house and to school before the police arrived,” he said.
He said his son told him he had gone to bed early the night before because he wasn’t feeling too good and had left his wife sitting up watching The Footy Show.
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