Paul Kent: Chris Dawson, the ill-fitting Newtown Jet who stood on the fringes

Inside convicted wife killer Chris Dawson’s rugby league dealings in an era where footballers and gangsters existed side-by-side, and often overlapped.

Such is the mettle of the modern gangster only a Chinese burn, applied lightly to the forearm, is necessary to give someone up to police nowadays.

Maybe this change in modern values explains better than any why it took so long to reveal that Chris Dawson, found guilty of murder on Tuesday, had approached a hitman to kill his wife and why the court found it so hard to accept.

During the trial one of Dawson’s former teammates at Newtown, Robert Silkman, told of Dawson approaching him on the plane on the way home from an end-of-season trip to the Gold Coast in 1975 to “help get rid of his wife Lynette”.

Silkman kept it to himself until 2018, when he told police, a detail that somehow erodes its credibility for Justice Ian Harrison.

He said the claim “cannot be believed”, was “entirely improbable” and a “fabrication”.

Ex-Newtown Jets player Chris Dawson was found guilty of murdering his wife. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Damian Shaw

It is hard to understand why it sounded so improbable. Part of the reason offered up was it took Silkman so long to reveal it, but times changed in between. And if a man is capable of killing his wife you figure there’s a chance he could also be capable of asking somebody else to do it.

Silkman was also a low-level criminal who used to drink with their Newtown teammate Paul Hayward, whose brother-in-law was Neddy Smith.

There is little improbable about that.

A year after the Dawson twins arrived at the club in 1972 Jack Gibson took over and took the club from battlers to the club championship in his only season.

While perhaps the game’s greatest ever coach, Gibson was also a well-connected SP bookmaker in Sydney after making his trade as a doorman at Joe Taylor’s two-up game and also dabbling in a little debt collecting around town.

Footballers were valued in the Sydney underworld because they were tough and staunch.

The Henson Park Hotel, now such a genteel pub it carries a policy not to show the races on a Saturday, was their drinking hole and would fill with footballers and gangsters after training.

Chris Dawson in his playing days at the Jets.

The two easily existed side-by-side, and often overlapped.

With such contacts, Gibson knew what went on beyond the sideline.

Later, for instance, when John Elias was on his way to the Roosters and Gibson was helping coach Mark Murray, Jack called Elias with a concern.

“John, it’s not your football I’m worried about. It’s what’s in the boot of your car.”

Elias hung up on him.

“Fancy him telling me that,” he said.

This was also about the time Gary Sullivan, who played with Dawson at Newtown in the 1970s, was pulling off some of the biggest bank and armoured truck robberies in Australia.

Dawson was around these men, even though he was an odd fit.

During her evidence Dawson’s schoolgirl lover JC also told the court that Dawson tried to hire a hitman to kill Lyn.

She said he drove her over to Western Sydney and left her in the car while he went to talk to a hitman about killing Lyn.

In the podcast, she remembered they went over the Sydney Harbour Bridge. She could not recall the establishment but remembered Dawson went upstairs.

JC told the court Dawson told her he decided not to go through with it because “innocent people would be killed, could be hurt”.

Justice Harrison found JC’s evidence reliable except for this claim of the search for a hitman, saying he was “not able to be satisfied” such a conversation took place.

The streetcorner tip is the hitman was Neddy Smith and the place was the old Newtown RSL Club, which was upstairs from the street.

The common word used by former Newtown teammates to describe the Dawson twins at Newtown was that they were “weird”.

“One would turn up to training with a red shirt, white shorts and blue socks and five minutes later the other would turn up wearing a red shirt, white shorts and blue socks,” said one witness.

“They always claimed they never spoke to each other before,” said another, “but it was like they’d ring each other.”

After home games the players would walk off and shower and have a beer in the changerooms.

Paul Dawson leaves the Supreme Court after his brother, Chris, was found guilty of murder. Picture: Justin Lloyd

The wives would get a headstart and head to Newtown Leagues Club, including Chris and Paul’s wives, and wait for their husbands to arrive later.

Some other wives felt sorry for the two women.

They found them overwhelmingly pleasant until the moment their husbands arrived, whereupon one of the Dawson’s — nobody was ever sure which one — would find where they were sitting and call them away to sit with them.

Lyn and her sister-in-law would stand and leave without protest.

They were an odd fit at Newtown.

They were tough and willing. Paul was better than Chris, although one former teammate believes coach Clarrie Jeffreys didn’t know the difference between them.

The team was an odd mix of criminals and local coppers, with Dawson out on the edge.

This idea that rugby league players are not capable of conversing with hitmen is an odd one, though.

One old player was once collecting from an SP bookie who told him they would settle later and to put the money in a drawer for the time being.

He opened the drawer and saw a .38 sitting there and put the money next to it.

A few weeks later there was another collection and the old bookie had a warning.

“There’s a bloke going around stomping on SPs,” he said.

“What do you want me to do?” the player asked.

“If he comes in, give him what he wants.”

Murders might be good business for Italian restaurants but it was bad for the secret business of bookmaking.

Anyway, nothing happened.

Then a few weeks later the standover was walking along an inner-Sydney laneway when somebody walked up behind him and put a .22 in his head.

The shooter, goes the tip, was believed to be an old South Sydney five-eighth.

He did a bit of time at Newtown, too.

SHORT SHOT

With a bow tie now on their home-and-away rounds Parramatta fans might owe Brad Arthur a late apology.

The frustration for the Eels faithful is always close to the surface and there was a period through this season, as there is most seasons, when Eels fans were agitating for change.

What they wanted they couldn’t agree on, but they were agitating anyway.

But Arthur has done a good job steering the Eels into fourth.

While the rest of the season is yet to be written the fact is Parramatta finished about where most believed they would, which is all fans can really ask for from the coach.

Brad Arthur has done a good job steering the Eels into fourth spot. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Every coach can’t win the premiership every season, and not every coach has a roster capable of winning the premiership.

Yet the moment fans get frustrated that they have waited too long, or don’t agree with certain decisions the coach makes, the campaign begins for a new coach and twitchy boards take far too much notice.

Nowadays, boards know once the noise begins that if they don’t move on the coach then the fans could move on them.

Arthur has quietly got on with the business of coaching the Eels, trying to solve their frustrating inconsistency, which three straight wins seem to have done, and now has the next job of pushing them through the finals, which has also been a problem.