Teacher’s Pet journalist denies using red carpet as inducement

The journalist who created a hit podcast about Lynette Dawson has denied using Hollywood stars Hugh Jackman and Joel Edgerton to lure witnesses.

The journalist who created a hit podcast which examined Lynette Dawson’s disappearance has denied inducing potential witnesses with the promise of walking the red carpet and rubbing elbows with movie stars, a court has been told.

Chris Dawson is standing trial in the NSW Supreme Court, where he has pleaded not guilty to murdering his wife Lynette Dawson, who disappeared from their Sydney northern beaches home in January 1982.

Hedley Thomas investigated the case as part of The Teacher’s Pet podcast, which racked up more than 60 million downloads internationally and earned him the Gold Walkley.

The prosecution has alleged Mr Dawson was motivated to kill Ms Dawson so he could be with JC, a teenage former student and babysitter who moved in his Bayview home following Lynette’s disappearance.

Mr Thomas has told Justice Ian Harrison, who is hearing the trial without a jury, that he formed a view that Mr Dawson should be prosecuted but denied the podcast amounted to an attempt to prejudice witnesses against the former schoolteacher and rugby league player.

The court was played an audio recording of Mr Thomas telling one of Ms Dawson’s sisters that his interviews with witnesses were longer and more exhaustive than some done by the police.

During the recording, he told Patricia Jenkins that producer Jason Blum and actor Joel Edgerton were preparing to announce they were working on an adaptation of the podcast.

Chris Dawson has pleaded not guilty to murdering his wife 40 years ago. Picture NCA NewsWire / Gaye Gerard

Hugh Jackman spoke with journalist Hedley Thomas, a court has heard. Picture: Dia Dipasupil / Getty Images

Defence barrister Pauline David put it to Mr Thomas that it was part of an attempt to portray that he knew more than the police and “poison their minds” against Mr Dawson.

“So they might try that little bit harder in their evidence to get the conviction you so desperately wanted to see,” Ms David said.

“They were intelligent people with their own independent minds,” Mr Thomas said.

Mr David further questioned whether Mr Thomas had “flattered” potential witnesses by speaking to them about a potential TV series.

“You induced them to say things … with your promises of walking the red carpet,” Ms David said.

“That’s incorrect,” Mr Thomas replied.

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

The defence has argued that Mr Thomas’ reporting and speaking with potential witnesses influenced their points of view and prejudiced them against Mr Dawson.

Ms David said that at the time Mr Thomas began working on his podcast in 2018, a brief of evidence had been sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

But Mr Thomas argued that it was the fifth brief of evidence in two decades and Ms Dawson’s family had low expectations of the case ever going to trial.

Journalist Hedley Thomas investigated the Lynette Dawson case as part of the Teacher’s Pet podcast. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gaye Gerard

During another conversation with a man, who can only be known as PS, Mr Thomas discussed that he was in conversation with movie star Hugh Jackman about potential interest in turning the podcast into a film or TV series.

PS previously told the court that he was threatened by Mr Dawson while working at a Coles supermarket as a teenager after asking out JC.

PS has told the court that he was shoved against a concrete ramp and told words to the effect of “stay away from her”.

Mr Thomas denied propositions from the defence that he was using his contact with Mr Jackman as an inducement for PS to talk to him.

“(PS) contacted me and contacted me undoubtedly before he had any knowledge of anything involving Hugh Jackman,” Mr Thomas said.

According to the Crown prosecution, Mr Dawson killed Lynette on or about January 8, 1982 when she last spoke to loved ones.

Mr Dawson has claimed that he dropped Ms Dawson off at a Mona Vale bus stop on the morning of January 9, 1982 before she failed to meet him at the Northbridge Baths, where he was working a part-time job as a lifeguard.

Mr Dawson told police in a 1991 interview that he had several phone conversations with his wife in the following weeks in which she said she needed time away, before finally saying she would not return.

He filed a missing person’s report at Mona Vale Police Station on February 18, 1982.

In an intercepted phone call played to the court on Tuesday, Mr Dawson was heard saying that he did not report his wife missing because he still had contact with her six to eight weeks after she was last seen by others.

“When I asked the police to find her, and I also asked three or four other private police, to see if they could find out anything for me… But you couldn’t report a person missing while you still had contact with them. I still had contact with Lyn for six or eight weeks,” Mr Dawson said in the intercepted phone call from September 2018, just weeks before he was arrested.

Chris and Lynette Dawson, before her disappearance. Picture: Supplied

Detective Senior Constable Daniel Poole, the lead detective in the investigation, told the court on Tuesday that as part of his investigations he looked up police protocol about missing persons from 1982.

“We obtained through the NSW Police library a copy of, for want of a better term, operating procedures in relation to missing persons around 1982 … From memory there is no mention of any specific time frame in which you have to wait to report someone missing,” Detective Poole said.

He told the court that there was no evidence, outside of statements and interviews given by Mr Dawson, which was able to verify Ms Dawson having any contact with Mr Dawson after January 8, 1982.

“There’s no other independent evidence in relation to any contact,” Detective Poole said.

The trial continues on Wednesday.