[4] On 23 August 1997, Allison June Dickie married[5] Gerard Robert Baden-Clay, who had been born in Bournemouth, England, United Kingdom on 9 September 1970.

[6] After leaving school, Gerard trained in accountancy, and then worked for Flight Centre in Brisbane,[5] where Allison was a colleague.

Allison had become an executive for Flight Centre, but Gerard, who had been running a successful up-market real estate franchise since 2004, was struggling following the disastrous Brisbane floods.

[12] On 30 April, a woman's body was found by a canoeist at Kholo Creek, Anstead, about 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) from the Baden-Clay home in Brookfield.

[15] On 13 June 2012, Gerard was formally interviewed at Indooroopilly police station and charged with Allison's murder and for interfering with her corpse.

[17] Gerard's bail application was denied on 22 June because Justice David Boddice said he posed a "significant flight risk".

[22] On 8 December, his conviction was downgraded to manslaughter,[23][24] on the ground that the evidence at trial was not able to exclude a reasonable hypothesis that “there was a physical confrontation between [Baden-Clay] and his wife in which he delivered a blow which killed her (for example, by the effects of a fall hitting her head against a hard surface) without intending to cause serious harm".

There was a strong public reaction and a large rally was organised calling for an appeal to the High Court of Australia.

On 18 December, a crowd estimated at around 4,000 people gathered in King George Square in the centre of Brisbane to support the proposal that the decision be appealed.