Chris Dawson planned to kill Lynette seven years earlier, footy friend claims

Chris Dawson planned get rid of wife Lynette seven years before she vanished, a court has heard, with a former teammate alleging in the murder trial that Dawson asked him to help.

Former teacher Chris Dawson planned his wife’s murder back in 1975, seven years before she went missing, it has been alleged in the Supreme Court.

But his accuser, Robert Silkman, 68, who claims Dawson asked him to “help get rid of his wife Lynette”, has a seven-page criminal history, used a number of aliases, drank with underworld figures Paul Hayward and Neddy Smith and never spoke to police about the alleged request until 2018, Dawson’s defence has told the court.

“If you saw a dollar in it you would tell a lie,” Dawson’s counsel Pauline David put to Silkman on Thursday.

“That is not correct,” the convicted thief replied.

Giving evidence from Bankstown Police Station because he said he had recently slipped on stairs and hurt his back, Mr Silkman was called as a prosecution witness.

A former footy teammate has alleged Chris Dawson approached him to ask for help in making his wife disappear. Picture: Dean Lewins

Crown prosecutor Craig Everson SC told the court in his opening statement five weeks ago that Mr Silkman had “some admitted criminal connections”.

Dawson, 67, who played rugby league with Mr Silkman in the mid-1970s in the Newtown Jets, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Lynette who disappeared aged 33 from their home in Sydney’s northern beaches in January 1982.

Robert Silkman arrives to give evidence from Bankstown Police Station. Picture: David Swift

He claims that she had just walked out of their marriage, leaving their two daughters behind.

The prosecution alleges that Dawson murdered her so he could move his young lover JC, who he met when she was a Year 11 student, into their home.

The Newtown Jets had been on an end of season celebratory weekend to the Gold Coast in late 1975, the court has been told.

Mr Silkman claims that on the flight home to Sydney, Dawson walked 13 rows back from his own seat and knelt in the aisle next to him and asked if he could help rid of his wife.

Cross-examined by Ms David, he agreed that he was sitting in the middle of the plane with people in front of him, behind of him and next to him.

Over the weekend, the team had been to the beach and had been to a beer garden to watch the boxing fight between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in the Philippines, billed as the “Thriller in Manilla”.

Chris and Lynette Dawson on their wedding day. Picture: Supplied

Mr Silkman denied it was “extraordinary” that Dawson had waited all weekend to make this request on the plane home.

“When you told the police about this in 2018, it was a complete lie that you have made up,” Ms David put to Mr Silkman.

He replied: “That is not correct.”

Mr Silkman has told he court he drank with Paul Hayward, who also played for the Newtown Jets in the 1970s.

Silkman said he met Arthur ‘Neddy’ Smith a few times.

Silkman also claimed he had drinks with Paul Hayward.

Hayward died of a heroin overdose n 1992 after contracting HIV in a Thai jail where he served a sentence for trying to smuggle heroin into Australia.

Mr Silkman said he had met the late serial killer Neddy Smith on a few occasions while in his company with Hayward.

Mr Silkman’s criminal record was read out to the court and included stealing 5000 bricks in May 1973, theft in February 1975 which he said he could not recall what was stolen, and malicious damage of a property by fire in February 1993.

He said he had set the Kogarah premises on fire because the owner, a friend of his, owed him money.

The trial before Justice Ian Harrison continues.