Gabe Batstone testifies against ex-wife charged with murdering daughter

Gabe Batstonekept hisemotions in checkthroughout his testimony Mondayin the second-degree murder trial of his ex-wife, Lisa Batstone.

The case revolves around theDecember 2014 death ofGabeBatstone'seight-year-old daughter, Teagan. The child was found dead in the trunk of her mother's car in Surrey.

Batstonesaid the hardest part of his testimony came when he was asked about the last time he saw Teaganalive.

It was two days before her death. Batstonewas dropping her off at school late after a dentist appointment.

"I remember the steps down the hallway, holding her hand,of course she always loved to hold hands and seeing the door open and her hand, almostlike a movie, her fingers pulling away as she walked and neither of you knowing, you'll never see each other again," he saidoutside the New Westminster courthouse.

"If you could do it again, I would have huggedand kissed her and smothered her, right? But having said that, it was the beautiful touching way that we always left each other," said Batstone.

"We didn't need to say a lot."

'Sometimes combative'

Batstonelives in Ottawaand throughout his testimony he described the fraught relationship he had with Lisa Batstone after their separation in 2008, when Teagan was two.

"Communication was challenging," he testified. "Sometimes acrimonious, sometimes combative."

Correspondence revolved around co-ordinatingvisits with their daughter, who mainly lived with her mother.

Batstonetold the court that in the last few yearshe would get flurries of emails and text messagesbut would try to limit his responses to weekly emails on Sunday.

He said he tried to limit meetings to public areas.

Phone calls were avoided, because, hesaid, they couldn't be recorded and he wanted some kind of a record of all their interactions.

The court heard about an incident in 2012 when Lisa Batstonewas hospitalized after trying to take her own life.

In the weeks that followed, GabeBatstonetook Teaganback to Ottawa and tried to get temporary custody, but a judge ultimately decided to restore the original custody arrangement.

Lisa Batstone'slawyer, Tony Paisana, asked GabeBatstoneabout trying to restrict his ex-wife's access to their daughter after the suicide attempt.

At the time, Batstone answered that he and his current wife had applied to the court to order all visits be supervised

"We wanted some oversightfor her [Teagan's] safety," he told the court, adding that they didn't stop Teagan from having webcam calls with her mother.

PaisanaaskedBatstoneif he thought his ex-wife was "spiralling" in the two months before Teagan's death.

"I felt like something was clearly different," he answered.

He saidhe hadn't set eyes on LisaBatstone since his daughter's death.

Not once did he address his ex-wife, who was sitting in the prisoner's box with a pen and yellow legal pad.

"I didn't look at her," said Batstoneoutside the courthouse."From my perspective, I don't have anything to do, sayor even think about her. This is just about justice for Teagan."

The trial is expected to last several more weeks.

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