FOR more than two years, Simon Gittany portrayed himself as a loving, calm and supportive fiance.
But his meticulous efforts to "play a role" came crashing down on Wednesday when he was found guilty of murdering his fiancee, Lisa Cecilia Harnum, by throwing her off their high-rise apartment balcony in a fit of uncontrollable rage.
In a damning judgment that took nearly five hours to read, Justice Lucy McCallum found Gittany lied with "telling ease" in the witness stand, distorted the truth to denigrate the woman he murdered and fabricated a story that just about fit in with the evidence.
"There can be no doubt the accused was controlling, dominating and at times abusive of Ms Harnum," Justice McCallum said.
"The force of his jealous and controlling personality met mixed reaction from Ms Harnum, who was at times defiant and at times submissive to an inexplicable degree.
"By the end of July 2011, these tensions had reached a point of crisis."
Justice McCallum found that by 6am on the morning of her death, Ms Harnum was "in a state of absolute fear and despair".
As she ran out of the apartment, screaming for help, Gittany dragged her back in a fit of "uncontrollable rage", the judge said.
Justice McCallum said Gittany's account of what happened next was "inherently implausible".
The judge rejected Gittany's claim that Ms Harnum then sat on the lounge as he made a cup of tea before she suddenly ran onto the balcony and that she could have climbed over the balcony to escape him, as a cry for attention or in a suicide bid.
"I have stood on that balcony," Justice McCallum said.
"I simply can't accept any person with a will to survive could have regarded it as an option for escape.
"Lisa Harnum may have been impulsive, maladaptive and over-sensitive. She may have been in a state of acute fear and despair.
"But I do not think she was deranged."
Justice McCallum said she couldn't say exactly what happened in the apartment during those 69 seconds, but it was likely Gittany knocked Ms Harnum unconscious.
"He maintained his rage and in that state carried her to the balcony and unloaded her over the edge," she said.
Gittany's current girlfriend, Rachelle Louise, screamed "You're wrong!" as the verdict was handed down before she was led out of court in tears.
The judge rejected Gittany's claim he only monitored Ms Harnum's text messages to try to discover her "closely guarded secret" as an attempt to "excuse what was an inexcusable breach of trust".
And when he discovered Ms Harnum was planning to leave him and had secretly put some clothes in storage, he went into a rage.
"For all his vigilance, his errant fiancee had found a way to secretly remove her belongings," the judge said.
Previously, Gittany had used a combination of "surveillance and persuasion" to prevent Ms Harnum from leaving him, she said.
"This time it was different."
Having discovered Gittany was monitoring her phone, Ms Harnum made plans to return to her native Canada and - just hours before her death on July 30, 2011 - called her mother Joan Harnum in a frantic state.
She told her mother to call her counsellor, "If anything happens to me".
Joan Harnum told reporters outside court, "there are no winners in this case".
"Two families have had their lives dramatically changed forever," Mrs Harnum said.
"We will always mourn the loss of our beautiful Lisa Cecilia and are working towards making her legacy a powerful wake-up call to young women."
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