Love letters from Chris Dawson to teen student revealed in court

Former teacher Chris Dawson, who is on trial for the murder of wife Lynette more than 40 years ago, allegedly sent love letters to a 16 year-old student of his a court has heard.

Former PE teacher Chris Dawson slipped notes of love and affection into the bag of a 16-year-old high school student and called himself “God” in a bid to disguise himself due to her young age, a court has heard.

Dawson, 73, is on trial for the murder of his wife Lynette who went missing from the Northern Beaches more than 40 years ago when she was aged just 33. Dawson has pleaded not guilty.

The student, referred to as JC in the trial for legal reasons, revealed how she found herself in his physical education class in Year 11 but that Dawson said that was no coincidence.

“He told me he had seen me in the playground the year before when I was 15 and decided he wanted to get to know me better because he was attracted to me,” she told the court.

Her parents had recently split and her home life was difficult because her mother and her new partner drank heavily in the evenings in their Dee Why flat, she told the court.

Chris Dawson and wife Lynette in 1974 Picture: Supplied

Things with Dawson turned physical one day when she was helping Dawson run an athletics carnival at the Narrabeen Athletics Centre.

“We were sitting at the finish line, they had a tiered podiums for judges to sit … and he put his hand on my leg,” she said.

Christopher Dawson at the Supreme Court of New South Wales in Sydney. Picture: Dean Lewins

Outside of school activities, the Cromer High School student said she would go to the Time and Tide Hotel in Dee Why with friends when she was 14.

By 1980, she was a Friday night regular where there were “often” high school teachers there.

One evening, she told the court she ran into Chris Dawson with his brother Paul.

“They told their wives they were going to go to the library but they came to the Time and Tide Hotel instead,” she said.

She first met Lynette Dawson at her high school when she played tennis with Dawson, his wife Lynette and a male friend of hers.

She soon was invited to babysit– something she said other students had done beforehand.

She told the court Dawson would pick her up from her home at Collaroy Plateau where her mother had moved to in 1980 and drive her back the next day.

Chris Dawson and Lyn Dawson from Christmas 1981. Picture: Supplied

He also offered to help her learn to drive, spending time at the carpark at Dee Why beach. During one lesson, Dawson confessed she made him feel like an older version of one of her male school friends.

“He kissed me, that was the first time he tried to kiss me,” she told the court.

By the end of 1980 he was writing her Christmas cards addressed to his pet name for her, Petal, and he called himself God when he signed them.

“He wanted to disguise who he was then because it was 1980 and I was 16 and that’s what he called himself,” she said.

Chris Dawson called himself “God” in love notes to his student, a court heard. Picture: Supplied

She told the court when their relationship ended in 1990, he said she should destroy all the notes of affection.

“When I left the relationship, he said I should destroy all those notes,” she told the court.

Lynette’s sister in law Merilyn Simms earlier on Wednesday told the court that by 1981 Lynette and Chris had stopped having sex.

“She was very upset, she said Chris was very angry all the time, he was evasive,” she said.

“She said their sexual relations had ceased, she said she couldn’t understand why.”

The trial in the Supreme Court continues under Justice Ian Harrison continues.