‘At last’: Lynette’s family hail sentence as Chris Dawson told he’ll die in jail
The family of Lynette Dawson have made a final plea for Chris Dawson to reveal where he buried his wife as he was sentenced to die in jail for her murder.
Lynette Dawson’s family have hailed Chris Dawson’s 24-year prison sentence as the end of a “long and painful” journey after the former teacher was told he will likely die in jail.
On Friday afternoon, 14,938 days after his wife went missing from their home in Sydney’s northern beaches, Dawson stood stoically in Sydney’s Supreme Court wearing prison greens as he was sentenced by Justice Ian Harrison.
Mr Dawson pleaded not guilty to the murder of his wife Lynette, who vanished from their Bayview home in January 1982 and over the last four decades has consistently maintained his innocence.
The 74-year-old was on Friday sentenced to 24 years in jail with a 18-year non parole period, meaning Dawson will first be eligible for parole in August 2040.
“The unavoidable prospect is that Mr Dawson will likely die in jail,” Justice Harrison said.
His lawyers have already lodged an intention to appeal the guilty verdict.
After a long-running trial earlier this year, Dawson was in August found guilty of the murder, after Justice Harrison said the only explanation was that he killed his 33-year-old wife to be with one of his former students.
He was found to have killed his wife just weeks after he had unsuccessfully attempted to run off with the teenage babysitter to start a new life in Queensland.
“I have found that Mr Dawson’s crime was inspired by an uncontrollable desire to be with JC,” Justice Harrison said.
“It was neither spontaneous nor unavoidable.”
Justice Harrison described Dawson’s crime as one of “self-indulgent brutality”
“In plain terms, it is not acceptable to take someone’s life merely because they represent an inconvenient impediment to a particular result,” Justice Harrison said.
Ms Dawson was last seen on Friday, January 8, 1982, with her last known contact to another person a phone call to her mother Helena Simms.
Her body has never been found and Justice Harrison found there was no “reasonable possibility” she voluntarily left and never contacted her friends or family, including her two children.
Ms Dawson’s family, including her brother Greg Simms, have pleaded with Dawson to reveal where she is buried.
“Today marks the end of a very long, painful, challenging journey,” Mr Simms said outside court on Friday afternoon.
“At last we got justice for Lyn and that was our main aim.
“For our family, Lyn will always be remembered as a happy, gentle, generous, loving daughter, sister, mother, niece, aunt and friend.
“Chris Dawson discarded her, the Dawsons disregarded her.”
During a heart-wrenching victim impact statement delivered during a sentence hearing earlier this year, Dawson’s daughter Shanelle Dawson said: “Please tell us where she is. You had no right, you are not a God.”
During a police interview in 1991, Dawson told detectives he had dropped off his wife at a Mona Vale bus stop so she could go shopping and it was planned that she would meet him later that afternoon.
She never arrived at the Northbridge Baths, where Mr Dawson worked as a part-time lifeguard.
Dawson had claimed that Lynette phoned him at the baths to say she needed time away, and phoned him on several more occasions before finally saying that she would not be returning.
But Justice Harrison found Dawson’s “infatuation” and “obsession” with the schoolgirl, who can only be known as JC, led him to murder his wife.
JC became the couple’s live-in babysitter in 1981, and during the trial told the court she would have sex with Mr Dawson while Ms Dawson was asleep.
She was eventually forced to move in with Mr Dawson’s brother Paul, who lived several doors up on Gilwinga Drive after she was confronted by Ms Dawson, the court heard.
In late 1981, Mr Dawson and JC packed his car full of their clothes and belongings and set out to Queensland to start a new life.
But JC forced Mr Dawson to turn the car around before the border, after she grew ill and told him that she missed her family.
In early 1982, JC travelled to South West Rocks to holiday with her friends and family.
She said during her stay she received a phone call from Mr Dawson who told her: “Lyn’s gone, she’s not coming back.”
“JC was beyond Mr Dawson‘s physical reach and control and beyond his emotional sway,” Judge Harrison said in his judgment on Friday.
“She was instead in the company of other young women and significantly young men of her age.”
JC went on to marry Dawson however she gave a statement to police after they separated in 1990.
Justice Harrison found Dawson was so “distressed”, “frustrated” and “tortured” by JC’s absence that he “resolved” to kill Ms Dawson.
He said that Dawson was driven by a “possessive infatuation” after JC had expressed her desire to end their relationship.
In handing down his sentence on Friday, Justice Harrison said he was satisfied that Ms Dawson was killed at her home on 2 Gilwinga Drive, despite the fact her body has never been found.
He described Dawson killed his wife for “selfish and cynical reasons” and treated his wife as “completely dispensable”.
Justice Harrison said Lynette was “faultless” and “completely unsuspecting” despite the decline in their marriage in the months prior.
Dawson’s lawyers have already filed a Notice of Intention to Appeal.
His solicitor Greg Walsh has previously said he would be represented by Senior Public Defender Belinda Rigg, SC in the Court of Criminal Appeal.
On Friday, Mr Walsh said he was bowing out of the case after being Dawson’s solicitor for four-and-a-half years.
Mr Walsh said that despite his conviction, Dawson maintained his innocence and claimed he could not reveal where Lynette was buried because he didn’t know.
“Mr Dawson will now, in all probability, spend the rest of his life in jail and will not have the relationship that he otherwise would have had with his own children,” Mr Walsh said outside court on Friday afternoon.
He also said he had been subjected to deaths threats in prison and had been referred to as the “teacher’s pet” by other inmates.
“It’s ironic that he’s referred to as the teacher’s pet along with ‘we’ll cut your throat’ and whatever,” Mr Walsh said.
“But he’ll live with that irony for the rest of his days.”
Dawson was supported in court by his older brother Peter, who declined to comment outside court.
More to come.
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