Bradley Max Rawlinson orchestrated the death of his girlfriend, Wollongong lawyer Katie Foreman, because he harboured strong feelings of animosity towards her, a court has heard.
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In his closing address to the jury in Ms Foreman's Supreme Court murder trial, Crown prosecutor Chris Maxwell, QC, said the evidence presented during the five-week Crown case clearly showed Rawlinson had "a great deal of enmity" towards Ms Foreman in the months before she died, and this was the "genesis" for her murder.
He pointed to text messages between Rawlinson and Wendy Anne Evans - his alleged secret lover at the time and Ms Foreman's one-time friend - as evidence of Rawlinson's feelings towards Ms Foreman.
"I want you to understand the predicament I'm stuck in," Rawlinson wrote to Evans in a text message sent 10 days before Ms Foreman's death.
"I want to be with you but she rules my life. I hate it and hate her for it."
Mr Maxwell said jurors should view love-filled text messages sent from Rawlinson to Ms Foreman around the same time as Rawlinson simply "spinning a web of lies" in order to distance himself from what was about to occur to Ms Foreman.
"In light of what he did, his declarations could not be accepted [as genuine]," Mr Maxwell said.
He suggested Rawlinson's knowledge of Ms Foreman's relationships with other men, including Lake Illawarra police officer Craig Fleuren and Evans's former partner, Scott Field, may also have fuelled his feelings of ill-will towards her, saying he'd spoken to Evans of his dislike for being "played along".
Meantime, Mr Maxwell argued jurors should reject claims made by Rawlinson in his police interview that he had been forced to help Evans "do something" to Ms Foreman because she had threatened to kill him when he tried to break off their relationship.
Mr Maxwell pointed to what was - and what was not - contained in text messages between Rawlinson and Evans around the time of the alleged threats as evidence Rawlinson was being untruthful.
He said the nature of the text exchanges, which included multiple professions of love and a shared displeasure at having to be away from each other, pointed to a "blossoming" relationship between the pair, to the point that at one stage Rawlinson asked Evans to consider moving to Perth with him.
What was missing from the conversations, he said, was evidence of any threats.
"Those texts [show] clearly the nature of the relationship that exists between them is not one of Rawlinson being overborne by the will of a woman who, by her force of character and threats, is keeping him in a relationship he doesn't want to be in," Mr Maxwell said.
"If there were any threats of this nature from Wendy Evans, wouldn't you expect to see them, at least once, in the texts?
"Nothing appears at all, it's quite the reverse; it's a relationship that appears to be blossoming between him and Wendy Evans."
Mr Maxwell said jurors should reject any claim by Rawlinson's lawyers he was used by Evans to enact a vengeful plan on Ms Foreman as payback for sleeping with Mr Field.
Mr Maxwell said the evidence pointed to Rawlinson as the orchestrator of Ms Foreman's demise.