A Family Court judge's Sydney home was blown up hours before he was to hear an application involving possible police force being used against litigant Leonard John Warwick, his murder trial has been told.
And almost a year later, a solicitor ceased acting for Warwick's estranged wife after a bomb was found in a car in the driveway of a house the lawyer had recently vacated.
Warwick, 71, has pleaded not guilty to four murders - including the shooting deaths of his brother-in-law and a judge - and 20 other offences relating to seven events that occurred in Sydney between February 1980 and July 1985.
The prosecutor says Warwick was involved in a long-running Family Court dispute which "inextricably linked" him to the events and provided him with a motivation to commit the crimes.
They included the 1980 shooting murders of his brother-in-law Stephen Blanchard and Justice David Opas; the bombing of Justice Richard Gee's home and of the Family Court building in Parramatta in 1984; and, in the same year, the bombing of Justice Ray Watson's home in which his wife Pearl was killed.
Warwick is also accused of setting off a bomb in 1985 that ripped apart a Jehovah's Witnesses hall killing Graham Wyke and injuring 13 people.
The organisation had supported Warwick's ex-wife Andrea Blanchard.
Giving evidence in the NSW Supreme Court on Tuesday, Family Court judge Garry Watts - who was the solicitor acting for Ms Blanchard from late 1982 to early 1985 - was taken through the couple's Family Court file.
He testified that on March 6, 1984, Justice Gee was due to hear Ms Blanchard's application for a standing order authorising police to take action, if necessary by force, against Warwick if another court order was not adhered to.
Such a standing order would be "very unusual', authorising NSW and Australian Federal Police officers to enforce compliance, he said.
But earlier on the day of the scheduled hearing "Justice Gee's house had been severely damaged by an explosion".
Justice Gee previously made orders adverse to Warwick
Another dispute was listed for hearing on February 15, 1985, days after Justice Watts said he heard that a bomb was found outside a property he had moved out of the year before.
"I had been told a bomb had been found under the bonnet of a car which was parked in my old driveway," he said.
He had sold the house, which he had lived in from around 1977, but his name was still listed at that address in the phone book.
"In the week after the bomb was found in the driveway, I had a conversation with Ms Blanchard (saying) I did not believe I could continue to act for her," he said.
The trial continues before Justice Peter Garling.
