Convicted murderer and former school teacher Chris Dawson has lost a court bid to overturn his conviction for sexually abusing a student in the 1980s.
The NSW Court of Criminal Appeal on Friday dismissed his appeal by a majority of two to one.
Chris Dawson, who is now serving a lengthy prison sentence for the murder of his wife Lynette, outside the NSW Supreme Court in 2022.Credit: Nick Moir
Dawson was convicted in 2023 of one count of carnal knowledge of his student, who was aged under 17, after a judge-alone trial in the NSW District Court.
He was already in prison, having been convicted in 2022 of murdering his wife Lynette in 1982 “for the selfish and cynical purpose of eliminating the inconvenient obstruction she presented” to a new life. Her body has never been found.
A year was added to Dawson’s non-parole period in 2023 after he was convicted of unlawful sexual activity with his then-pupil in 1980 and sentenced to a maximum of three years in prison. He is first eligible for release from jail in 2041, aged 93.
Dawson became a sports teacher at Cromer High School in 1979. District Court Judge Sarah Huggett found he groomed and sexually abused the 16-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons.
The majority of the Court of Criminal Appeal – justices Kristina Stern and Sarah McNaughton – agreed that Dawson’s appeal should be dismissed.
Justice Peter Hamill, in dissent, would have quashed Dawson’s conviction and entered a verdict of not guilty. However, he said it was not in dispute that Dawson “engaged in reprehensible conduct and that the complainant was the victim of that conduct”, including “grooming her in the latter years of high school”.
Stern said the critical issue in dispute at the trial was the timing of the first instance of sexual activity between Dawson and the complainant, and whether it occurred when she was 16 years old and his student.
There was no dispute that sexual activity did occur when she was 17 and a student, but not Dawson’s pupil.
“[H]aving regard to the evidence as a whole, I am wholly satisfied that it is sufficient in nature and quality to eliminate any reasonable doubt as to [Dawson’s] guilt,” Stern said.
Lynette Dawson in 1975. Chris Dawson was sentenced in 2022 to a maximum of 24 years in prison for her murder.Credit: NSW Supreme Court/ABC
McNaughton concluded it was “well open to the trial judge to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the accused was guilty”.
In his dissenting reasons, Hamill said he was not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the sexual activity occurred at the relevant time.
“That the complainant was under 17 years old and was the applicant’s pupil at the time ... were essential elements of the offence,” he said. The trial had been “fought on the confined issue” that this timing had not been established beyond reasonable doubt, he said.
But Hamill said “[one] important finding that was not contested on appeal was that the complainant was an honest witness doing her best to provide an accurate account more than 40 years after the events”.
In sentencing Dawson in 2022 to a maximum of 24 years in prison for Lynette’s murder, NSW Supreme Court Justice Ian Harrison condemned Dawson’s “self-indulgent brutality”.
Get alerts on significant breaking news as happens. Sign up for our Breaking News Alert.