Why convicted wife killer Chris Dawson says he’s not guilty

Chris Dawson has launched a desperate bid to have his murder conviction quashed a year after he was found guilty of killing his wife and told he would die in jail.

Ex-teacher Chris Dawson claims it was “unreasonable” for a judge to find him guilty of murdering his wife Lynette Simms, a court has been told, as he launched his bid to be freed from jail.

Dawson, 75, will appear before the state’s highest court – the Court of Criminal Appeal – in May next year in an attempt to have his murder conviction quashed.

The former Newtown Jets rugby league player was sentenced to 24 years in prison after a Supreme Court judge last year found him guilty of murdering his wife, who disappeared from their Bayview home on Sydney’s northern beaches more than 40 years ago.

After a long-running trial, Justice Ian Harrison found that Dawson killed his wife so he could be with the family’s babysitter, whom he later went on to marry.

Ms Simms disappeared in January 1982 – her body has never been found and she never contacted her friends or family, including her two children.

Chris Dawson, in one of the last pictures of him as a free man. Picture NCA NewsWire/ Gaye Gerard

Dawson was sentenced to 24 years in prison. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Vincent de Gouw

On Thursday, lawyers acting for Dawson appeared in the Court of Criminal Appeal after he launched an appeal against the verdict.

The court was told that his appeal would be heard over three days from May 13 next year.

Dawson has appealed on four grounds, including that the verdict was “unreasonable”, the court was told on Thursday.

In the Grounds of Appeal, Dawson’s lawyers argue the ex-footballer was subject to a “significant forensic disadvantage” because of the four decades between Lynette’s disappearance and the trial, meaning evidence and witnesses were no longer available.

In his judgment, Justice Harrison found that Dawson told several lies and said: “ I consider that these lies are evidence of Mr Dawson’s consciousness of guilt for the murder of Lynette Dawson.”

Chris Dawson with Lynette Simms on their wedding day. Picture: Supplied.

Dawson’s lawyers argue that it was wrong to infer that he displayed a consciousness of guilt.

As well, they argue that the verdict was “unreasonable” and not supported by the evidence.

They say that there was “inadequate” evidence to prove that Ms Dawson was not alive after January 9, 1982.

They further argue “on the whole of the evidence” it was “not open” to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Dawson was guilty.

Dawson will watch his appeal from prison via audio link and will be represented by senior public defender Belinda Rigg SC.

During his judgment last year, Justice Harrison said the case against Dawson was circumstantial, however noted a guilty verdict was the only “rational inference” he could draw from the circumstances.

Ms Simms was 33 when she was last seen on Friday, January 8, 1982 and her last known contact came when she spoke to her mother Helena Simms on a phone call that evening.

Justice Harrison found that Dawson had a “possessive infatuation” with the family’s babysitter, who moved into his Bayview home after Lynette disappeared.

He was convicted of murdering his wife Lynette, who disappeared from their Bayview home. Picture: Supplied

Dawson 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.

Dawson has always maintained his innocence and pleaded not guilty to the murder charge at trial.

At trial, his defence argued that he had neither the opportunity nor the motive to kill the mother of his two children.

Dawson in 1991 told detectives during a police interview that 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.

However, she did not arrive at the Northbridge Baths, where Dawson worked as a part-time lifeguard.

Dawson was sentenced to 24 years in jail with an 18-year non-parole period.

Earlier this year, Dawson was also convicted of one count of carnal knowledge after a judge found he engaged in sexual activities with one of his 16-year-old students at a Sydney high school in 1980.

He was sentenced by Judge Sarah Huggett to three years in jail and had one year added onto his non-parole period.