A man accused of murdering his girlfriend and leaving her body to rot in a bathtub lived in the home for months after she died, a court has heard.
Andrew Baker, 55, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Sarah Gatt in April 2017 and is facing a trial in the Supreme Court of Victoria.
The court has heard the 39-year-old mother-of-two’s death went unreported for more than eight months until police discovered her decomposing body during a welfare check in January 2018.
On Thursday, the court heard from Christine Downing, a former case manager at homelessness resource centre Ozanam House, who had dealt with both Ms Gatt and Mr Baker.
She told the court she spoke to Mr Baker several times between May and August 2017, who was sleeping rough and dealing with mental health issues.
After their first appointment on May 10, she wrote in her notes he looked “fragile and tired”.
On August 7, she noted he told her he was living at his girlfriend Sarah’s home while she was receiving psychiatric care at the Royal Melbourne Hospital.
More than three weeks later, on August 30, they spoke over the phone and he told her he was living at his “ex’s”, while she was “still in hospital for the next four weeks”.
Prosecutors allege Mr Baker killed Ms Gatt at some point between April 19 and 22, dumping her body in the bathtub of her Kensington home and covering it with a sheet and household items.
Forensic pathologists were unable to determine any injuries or cause of death due to her “extreme decomposition”.
Ms Gatt had been in a long-term relationship with Mr Baker, but had also been in an on-and-off romantic relationship with another woman, Leona Rei-Paku.
Earlier in the trial, crown prosecutor John Dickie told the court the case alleged Mr Baker was “extremely jealous” of her relationship with Ms Rei-Paku.
“He wanted Sarah Gatt to himself,” he said.
Giving evidence this week, Ms Rei-Paku said she last saw Ms Gatt on April 19, 2017, when they allegedly decided to resume living together.
Mr Dickie told the court she is the last person to admit seeing Ms Gatt alive.
Ms Rei-Paku said when the contact suddenly stopped, she would buy a six-pack of alcohol or drugs and visit Ms Gatt’s home every fortnight but no one would answer the door.
She said at some point later she bumped into Mr Baker and questioned him about Ms Gatt’s whereabouts.
“He told me she was in rehab and would be getting out soon,” she told the jury.
She said Mr Baker invited her back to Ms Gatt’s home, telling her he’d discovered “something” in the upstairs bathroom.
She fought tears on the witness stand as she described being shown a decomposing foot sticking out from under items in the bathtub.
“It was a yucky thing, all brown and black,” she said.
“I said, ‘What is this?’ He told me, ‘We thought it was you.’ That made me panic.”
Earlier in the trial, Mr Baker’s barrister, John Saunders, told the jury it was not disputed that his client knew there was a body in the bathtub.
He said his client had nothing to do with Ms Gatt’s death, which may have been caused by someone else, a drug overdose or an accident.
“Being in the house with a body and not calling the police might strike you as odd,” he said.
“But these are people who live on the outskirts of society; they come from a very different walk of life and many suffer from drug issues.”
The five-week trial, before Justice Jane Dixon, continues.
