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| Gerard Baden-Clay guilty of murdering wife | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Brisbane man Gerard Baden-Clay has been found guilty of murdering his wife, Allison. | |
| A Brisbane supreme court jury delivered the unanimous verdict just before noon on Tuesday, after deliberating for about 21 hours. The decision came on the 21st day of Baden-Clay's trial. | |
| Baden-Clay clenched his jaw and closed his eyes as he learned his fate. A cheer from Allison's family erupted as the verdict was delivered. | |
| Allison's sister Vanessa Fowler wept and clasped her hands, and whispered "thank you" to the jury. | Allison's sister Vanessa Fowler wept and clasped her hands, and whispered "thank you" to the jury. |
| Her mother, Priscilla Dickie, read a victim impact statement to the court. "I'm grieving over the late Allison June Baden-Clay," she said in a shaking voice. My daughter was a wonderful mother, a devoted wife, a caring daughter and loving aunt." | |
| She added: "One of the last things Allison did was to leave her marks on her husband," referring to scratches her daughter left on Baden-Clay's face on the night she died. | |
| She said Allison had so much to offer her family and her three young daughters but all that had been taken away and her family had been sentenced to a lifetime of grief. | |
| "It devastated me to know Allison was living in a troubled relationship," Dickie said. | |
| She said Baden-Clay had betrayed her daughter and made a mockery of their marriage. "The pain does not go away," she said. | |
| Her life now revolved around Allison's three daughters and she said their courage had astounded her. "Their resilience to this tragedy is a result of her guidance and love," Dickie said. | |
| "The girls will never see their mother again. They've been condemned to a life sentence without the love and companionship only a mother can give. | |
| "To kill your wife, to take away a mother and to still show no remorse has to us been one of the saddest and most distressing facts from this murder.” | |
| She said the murder had completely and dramatically changed the rest of her life, her husband's life and the lives of Allison's children. | |
| "Allison did not leave her girls. She had so much to offer them," she said. "Not being given the opportunity to say goodbye, hug or tell her how much we love her is shattering." | |
| Baden-Clay wept as he listened to Allison's mother. | |
| Allison's father, Geoff Dickie, also told the court of his heartbreak, saying the wonder of his life had been taken away. He found it hard to sleep and the agony of his daughter's fate tormented him every day. | |
| "The murder of our daughter ... leaves an enormous black hole in our lives from which I will never recover," he told the court. | |
| He said he was haunted by the image of the moment his daughter was attacked. "I know she would have found the strength to fight as hard and long as she could until the end before she was murdered," he said. | |
| He vowed to raise his three granddaughters in the way Allison would have wanted, adding that it was a father's duty was to protect and care for his daughter. "I've failed in my duty and I'll have to live with that," Dickie said. | |
| He said he had given Baden-Clay permission to marry his daughter but never gave him permission to betray them. "We accepted you into our family and you abused our trust with your lies and deceits," he said. | |
| Allison's sister whispered the word "bastard" as her father spoke of giving his blessing when Baden-Clay had asked for Allison's hand in marriage. | |
| The murder conviction means Baden-Clay faces life imprisonment and at least 15 years without parole. |