Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
After his arrest on murder charges, Bradley Max Rawlinson penned a heartfelt letter to his parents, apologising for bringing shame on the family, a court has heard.
Rawlinson was taken into police custody in December 2011 in relation to the death of his then girlfriend, Wollongong solicitor Katie Foreman, two months earlier.
Ms Foreman died in a deliberately lit fire at her Corrimal home early on October 27.
In a letter Rawlinson sent to his mother, Janet, while behind bars awaiting his trial, he told his parents he missed being at home with them, and was sorry for the pain he had caused them.
"I know it's embarrassing for you and I'm sorry," he wrote.
"I know I've brought shame on the family and it kills me what I've done to [the family]. I'm sorry."
Police allege Rawlinson colluded with his secret lover and Ms Foreman's one-time friend, Wendy Anne Evans, to kill Ms Foreman so he and Evans could be together.
However, in the letter, tendered in the Supreme Court yesterday, Rawlinson gives a different explanation for his situation. "All the pressure by Katie to help her get out of trouble with this creature and all it's end[ed] up doing is getting me in trouble and Katie loses her life," he wrote.
"I want to tell the truth so I can get out of here but I'm so worried about [my family]."
The court has previously heard allegations that Evans had threatened to harm members of Rawlinson's family.
Meanwhile, Crown solicitor Chris Maxwell, QC, also tendered a series of letters written by the two others accused of murder, western Sydney couple Bernard Justin Spicer and Michelle Sharon Proud.
Evans allegedly hired them to help plan and carry out the murder, with Rawlinson paying them.
Spicer has already admitted playing a part in the killing by throwing petrol into Ms Foreman's bedroom. But he maintains Evans had assured him Ms Foreman would not be home that night.
In a series of four letters Spicer wrote to Proud at the beginning of 2012, he repeatedly expressed his love for her, before asking that she write to him detailing what she had divulged to police.
"Please, f- - -, I need to know what you told the cops about that night cause if you told them that we knew she [Ms Foreman] was home, we are f- - -ed," he wrote in one letter.
In another note, Spicer said he was going to tell his lawyer that Proud had "no idea what was going on" and promised to "get you out".
He also told her to tell police that Evans "changed the plan from going to get a laptop and phone to torching the house" and she had told them no-one was going to be there at the time.
The trial continues.