Trolley boy ‘threatened’ by Chris Dawson after asking out babysitter, court told

A previously unseen interview released by the court reveals Chris Dawson told police he had spoken to wife Lyn after her disappearance. See the video.

Chris Dawson had several phone calls with his wife Lynette Dawson after she went missing and enlisted friends in the police to unravel the mystery, a court has heard.

In a never-before-seen police interview between Mr Dawson and detectives, which was released by the NSW Supreme Court on Monday, the former rugby league player gave his version of Lynette’s vanishing from their Sydney northern beaches home 40 years ago.

The interview was conducted in January 1991 at Beenleigh Station in Queensland, where Mr Dawson was living at the time and working at a Gold Coast high school.

Mr Dawson is standing trial, accused of murdering his wife so he could pursue a relationship with a teenage former student and babysitter, who can only be known as JC.

Chris Dawson (second from the right) during a police interview in January 1991. Picture: Supplied

He has pleaded not guilty and during the interview, Mr Dawson made several key claims and statements to Detective Sergeant Paul Mayger including:

· He described allegations, made by JC, that he had attempted to hire a hitman before changing his mind as a “complete and utter fabrication”.

· The day before Lynette went missing she had an “emotional breakdown” during which she threw her daughter “onto the bed”.

· Just prior to Lynette going missing, they had gone to marriage counselling but had left “holding hands”

· A friend had told him he had seen Lynette in a car on the Central Coast.

Chris Dawson has pleaded not guilty to murdering his wife Lynette in 1982. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw

Asked to explain the events which surrounded Ms Dawson’s disappearance, he noted the couple had been experiencing matrimonial problems.

He said around the same time they began marriage counselling, Lynette began talking to a tradesman at their Bayview house who was “tied up to some religious sect”.

“Lyn sought some comfort from him, so far as he was asking her to come along to the meetings and getting her literature,” Mr Dawson said.

Chris Dawson and Lynette Dawson prior to her disappearance. Picture: Supplied

It comes as a former Coles trolley boy told the court he was held down and threatened by Chris Dawson because he flirted with the 16-year-old girl employee who also worked as Dawson’s babysitter who we would go on to marry.

Chris Dawson, 73, is standing trial for the alleged murder of his first wife Lynette more than 40 years after she who went missing in January 1982.

The supermarket worker told the court he worked at Dee Why Coles in the early 1980s with the babysitter Dawson subsequently went on to have sex with while she was a schoolgirl working as his babysitter.

The colleague never asked the young babysitter out again after an incident in the car park located underneath the store when he was collecting trolleys and a man emerged out of the shadows.

“He got very close to me, he shoved me against — the concrete ramp went on an angle back to the store — he backed me against the concrete structure and held me against the structure,” he told the court.

Former teacher and rugby player Chris Dawson seen at the Supreme Court on May 24. Picture: Gaye Gerard

The man in question was Chris Dawson, he said.

“My memory is that Mr Dawson said words to the effect of ‘I just want you stay away from her … or else’, or words to that effect.”

The witness said he did not even know who the older man was referring to.

“I was 16-years-old and very small and he was a very large man.”

Under cross examination, Dawson’s lawyer Greg Walsh asked him about his memory of the event.

“When you gave your statement to the police … you said ‘I remember letting her know by asking her out or something similar … nothing ever eventuated, I never even got to hold her hand,” he read out to the court.

“What I am suggesting to you, your recollection about this is not very certain, is it?”

The witness replied: “The event in the carpark is very certain.”

Later in the day they heard from Chris Dawson’s brother Peter Dawson, a former solicitor. The court had previously heard he had given Chris Dawson advice telling him that if he left Lynette he would lose between 60 and 70 per cent of his wealth to her. He refuted that he ever provided that advice.

“I certainly did not,” he told the court in an agitated tone. Asked why not, he said “it would have been very poor advice”.

On Monday morning, they heard from Lynette Dawson’s former work colleague about how she had observed her with a black eye at Warringah mall.

“I was walking towards her … she stopped … I didn’t know who it was, she had sunglasses on, her hair was cut,” Ms Solomon said.

“I could see a huge horrible black eye,” she said.

Dawson swung wife around ‘like a rag doll’, court hears
A second babysitter who looked after Chris and Lynette Dawson’s young children has told a court that Dawson swung his wife like a “rag doll” and had violent outbursts when she failed to complete domestic duties up to his high standards.

Dawson, now 73, is standing trial for the murder of Lynette Dawson who went missing more than 40 years ago on January 1982. He has pleaded not guilty.

Former babysitter Bev McNally told the court she preceded another babysitter who the court had previously heard Dawson went on to have sex with and ultimately marry.

The previous babysitter — who Dawson did not have sex with — told the court of an episode when she arrived at their “perfect” Bayview house for a babysitting shift and as the couple were getting ready she heard a noise coming from the daughter’s room.

“I saw Chris Dawson grabbing Lynette by the top of her arm, and basically swinging her into the bedroom in an angry forceful act,” she said.

“Lynette was almost like a rag doll because he was a lot bigger. And as he grabbed her and swung her, she actually collected the door frame with her shoulder and possibly her head, I’m not sure, and slumped forward.”

In another incident she described how Chris turned violent after finding a dirty glass in the kitchen.

“Chris reached behind her to get a glass out of the cupboard … he said something about it (being) dirty,” she told the court.

“He got a tea towel … I thought he was going to use it to clean the glass but he actually flicked it across Lynette’s back.

She told the court Lynette flinched and picked up the glass.

Chris Dawson (left) and his twin brother Paul at the Supreme Court of NSW this week. Picture: AAP

“Chris stormed off … I went to hand (the glass) to Lyn, I kind of put my arm over her shoulder and realised she was crying.”

She also described another incident in a walk-in wardrobe where Chris Dawson’s shirt was kept.

“They were always pristine, they were always in neat rows, above the colour co-ordinated shoes and all basically perfectly in line most of the time,” she said.

“There was one time when I was in the house, they were getting ready to go out somewhere, and he went to pick up a piece of clothing and something wasn’t perfectly ironed,” she told the court.

“He basically grabbed a whole heap of clothes and threw them on the bed and told her to do them again.”

Under cross examination, defence barrister Pauline David said the incident about throwing the shirts on the bed had never been recounted to police before and suggested it was a fabrication.

In reference to the tea towel incident, Ms David said the witness's account had changed since a police statement and when she recounted it to the court on Thursday.

"It is becoming more of a violent and dramatic situation as the story grows, isn't it Ms McNally?" Ms David asked her.

"I don't think so, it was over 30 years ago … as you ponder over things you do remember (more)," Ms McNally replied.

Ms David suggested to the witness that she had come to the court with "a view to portraying him as the person who we can all believe committed the murder?"-- but Ms McNally said she came to tell the truth"

The trial continues.

Tennis pal saw big bruise on Lynette Dawson, court hears

Earlier on May 26, a tennis buddy of allegedly murdered woman Lynette Dawson said she had a “grapefruit sized” bruise on her thigh in the weeks before she went missing from the Northern Beaches.

On Thursday morning a woman from her tennis group Roslyn McLachlan said Lynette was distressed just two weeks before she went missing.

“She had shorts on the bottom, and that showed some bruising,” she told the court.

Ms McLachlan said that bruise was “grapefruit sized” bruise on her thigh and also had bruising on her arm.

“I certainly didn’t ask them about them … back in the 70s … in those days you didn’t discuss private family matters with people,” she said.

The social tennis game with other young mums took place at another friend’s Bayview house in a private court.

Lynette and Chris Dawson in 1974.

At the conclusion of the game, she said Lynette was very distressed.

“I was surprised, she was really wanting me to go back to her place for coffee after tennis,” she said.

“She certainly asked me more than once … she was quite distressed.

“She was begging me to go back.”

Under cross examination she was asked by defence barrister Pauline David if she was so distressed, why did she not make time to speak with her.

“Because of the time of year I had things I had to do … I had added the tennis in, I felt bad I hadn’t gone back with her,” she said.

Ms David suggested that she had no way of knowing if the bruising was sustained from domestic violence.

“Did you ask Lynette Dawson how she sustained the bruising?” she said.

“No I didn’t because those sorts of things weren’t generally discussed.”