‘No doubt’: Lynette Dawson sightings revealed

Lynette Dawson was spotted several times following her disappearance, her husband Chris Dawson’s murder trial has heard.

Three Dawson family friends said they saw Lynette Dawson following her disappearance, including one neighbour who said he had “no doubt” he had spotted the missing mother-of-two, a court has heard.

Chris Dawson, 73, is standing trial in the NSW Supreme Court charged with the murder of his wife Lynette, who vanished from their Sydney northern beaches home 40 years ago.

The prosecution alleges that Mr Dawson was motivated to kill Ms Dawson so he could have an “unfettered” relationship with a former student and babysitter, who can only be known as JC.

Mr Dawson has pleaded not guilty, arguing that his wife contacted him several times after she went missing in January 1982 and she had been sighted several times.

According to a statement of agreed facts tendered to the court, there had been four claimed sightings of Ms Dawson since she went missing.

She never contacted her friends and family, including her children, after she last spoke to her mother on the evening of January 8, 1982.

On Friday, the court heard that the Dawsons’ former Bayview neighbours, Peter and Jill Breese, had both said they had seen Ms Dawson in June 1984 – 19 months after she was last seen.

Mr Breese told the court that he briefly saw Ms Dawson after undergoing an operation at Rock Castle Private Hospital – now South Pacific Private Hospital – at Curl Curl for an operation to straighten his septum.

He said he was lying in his hospital bed recovering when a woman, who he believed to be Ms Dawson, came to the door wearing a nurse’s uniform.

Chris Dawson has pleaded not guilty to killing his wife in 1982. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Nikki Short.

Peter Breese has told a court he saw Lynette Dawson more than a year after she disappeared. Picture: Nikki Short

“I HAD NO DOUBT”

“It was brief but it stuck in my mind because if someone comes to the door, they’re there for a reason,” Mr Breese said.

“And then you look at them, they literally spin on their heels and turn very quickly and walk away and never come back.”

Mr Breese was asked by Mr Dawson’s lawyer, Greg Walsh: “When you saw her, did you have any doubt it was Lynette Dawson?”

“I had no doubt it was her,” Mr Breese replied.

Mr Breese later added he could not be 100 per cent certain of anything in life and there was a “possibility” he was mistaken.

Chris Dawson and his wife Lynette Dawson before she went missing from their Bayview home. Picture: Supplied

Mr Breese and his wife Jill lived on acreage at Torumba Ave, Bayview, that backed onto the Dawson family home at Gilwinga Dr.

The court has previously been told that Ms Dawson worked as a nurse at a Warriewood childcare centre before she disappeared.

The court was told on Friday that Mr Breese later had a conversation with his wife Jill, when she came to visit him in hospital, who told him: “I’ve seen Lynette Dawson.”

Mr Breese told the court on Friday that he replied: “Well, I’ve seen her too.”

Mr Breese told the court that at the time he did not make much of the incident because he was not aware she was missing.

He told the court that he didn’t become aware that she had vanished until he saw a missing person’s item in the Manly Daily in 1986 or 1987.

JC on the day she and Chris Dawson set out for Queensland with the intention of starting a new life. Picture: Supplied

A police missing person’s report for Lynette Dawson. Picture: Supplied

“I BELIEVE I SAW LYN DAWSON”

The court was told that Jill Breese was too ill to give evidence and it was played a recording of her evidence from proceedings in the Downing Centre Local Court from February 2020.

When she was asked by Crown prosecutor Craig Everson: “When you were there visiting your husband, did you see someone that you thought you knew who that person was?”

“I believe I saw Lyn Dawson,” Ms Breese told the court at the time.

“What did that person look like?” Mr Everson asked.

“Like Lyn Dawson,” Ms Breese replied.

She contacted Mona Vale police station after seeing a newspaper item in the late 1980s to offer information.

She said a constable rang her back a few hours later and told her that detectives believed Ms Dawson was “under the pool” at Gilwinga Dr.

Jill Breese said she saw Lynette Dawson more than a year after she disappeared. Picture: AAP / Bianca De Marchi

THE FRUIT BARN

Another Dawson family friend, Ray Butlin, told the court on Friday afternoon that his former wife Sue had told him of seeing Ms Dawson at a roadside fruit barn sometime after Lynette’s disappearance.

Mr Butlin and his wife – who died in 1998 – befriended Chris and Lynette Dawson through the Gosford Rugby League Club.

Ms Butlin worked a weekend job at a fruit and vegetable shop on the side of the Pacific Highway at Kulnura on the Central Coast.

Mr Butlin told the court that Sue had told him that she on one occasion saw Lynette Dawson during one of her shifts.

“The substance was that (Ms Butlin) saw a person that she believed was Lyn Dawson,” Mr Butlin said.

“She walked towards her and the woman proceeded, without turning around, and got into a car and drove off.”

Ray Butlin says his wife told him that she believed she saw Ms Dawson following her disappearance. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Christian Gilles.

THE OTHER DAWSON DISAPPEARANCE

Lynette Dawson’s former sister-in-law told the court on Friday of how her mother had left her family home and did not contact her for decades before she died.

Lynelle Dawson, who was formerly married to Chris’ brother, Peter, said that when she was nine-years-old, her mother had left to live in a boarding house in Rockdale, in Sydney’s south.

Lynelle Dawson told the court that she saw her mother, Marcia Hatton, several times at the boarding house before she subsequently disappeared in 1961.

Lynelle Dawson told the court that her mother had left when she was young. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Nikki Short.

In 2018, Lynelle Dawson began to look for her mother and tracked her down via a search of the New Zealand registry of births, deaths and marriages.

She discovered that her mother had moved to New Zealand, remarried twice and changed her last name before dying in 2002.

Lynelle Dawson said her aunt played a big hand in raising her and Lynette Dawson was aware of the circumstances in which she was raised.

“I know (Lynette) thought the world of my aunt and I think she thought we’re doing well,” Lynelle Dawson told the court.

The trial continues.