Alan Delaney found guilty of murdering Aaron Baxter in Queanbeyan

Alan William Delaney has been found guilty of murdering Aaron Baxter. Photo: Facebook.

A jury has found Alan William Delaney guilty of murdering Aaron Baxter in Queanbeyan on Boxing Day 2019.

The 53-year-old’s jury trial began last week. He was fighting a charge of murdering the 46-year-old who died from a lacerated spleen after being assaulted by Delaney under a bridge in the centre of the town.

After a day-and-a-half of deliberations, the jury in the Queanbeyan Supreme Court trial returned a guilty verdict for murder on Tuesday (22 February).

Earlier, jurors had been told they had three options: guilty of murder, not guilty of any crime, or not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter.

At the opening of the trial, Crown Prosecutor Nerissa Keay said the cause of death was massive internal bleeding that started from a laceration to Mr Baxter’s spleen.

Delaney did not dispute the fact he had gotten into a fight with his victim but denied murdering him.

In the trial’s closings, his barrister, Duncan Berents, argued Mr Baxter was a high-fall risk and slipped and “fell heavily onto his face” about half an hour after being assaulted.

He said it was after this fall that he complained he was dizzy, couldn’t see and became incoherent.

Mr Berents had also said the test for murder lay in what he intended. He said when Delaney walked away from Mr Baxter after the assault, he told him to stay away and that “I should have smashed you”. Also in a text, he said, “I flogged him”.

He questioned why he would make these comments if he intended to kill him.

On Tuesday, Justice Fagan discharged the jury listed the matter for a sentence hearing on 26 April.