Dawson called wife ‘fatso’ while having sex with teen

Chris Dawson had sex with a babysitter in the family home while his wife Lynette slept, a court is told.

Chris Dawson, left, leaves the Supreme Court of NSW in Sydney on Wednesday. Picture: AAP

Former teacher Chris Dawson sang cruel songs about his wife Lynette, called her “fatso”, and while she slept had sex with the couple’s teenage babysitter in the family home, a court has been told.

The babysitter, known only as JC, on Wednesday gave dramatic courtroom evidence that she met Mr Dawson in 1980 when she was in Year 11 at Cromer High School on Sydney’s northern beaches.

Mr Dawson was her physical education teacher, having “deliberately tried to take my class”, she said, after seeing her in the playground a year earlier aged 15.

He then dropped love letters and cards in her school bag, signing off with the name “GOD” to disguise his identity.

Hired to look after the Dawsons’ two little girls, JC would swim topless in the swimming pool of the family’s house at Gilwinga Drive in Bayview, “probably” from her first visit.

She was later invited to live there by the trusted teacher and former professional footballer to escape the horrible violence in her own home.

Lyn Dawson in 1980.

Mr Dawson was twice her age. He would mix his wife alcoholic drinks, and when she fell asleep he would want sex from the teenage guest.

“He used to call her (Lyn) fatso. He referred to her while I was ¬living there as fatso,” JC told Mr Dawson’s murder trial.

“Didn’t call her Lyn. He called her fatso. And laughed about it.”

In a calm and steady voice, JC, now 58, said Lyn “was very welcoming and Chris was very distant with her”.

She added: “He used to sing songs to her that were cruel. He put her down. Just songs with double meanings. Maybe it was to ¬impress me.”

Mr Dawson, now 73, watched silently from the other side of the courtroom, repeatedly touching his face with his hand.

The crown alleges that in January 1982, he killed Lyn and disposed of her body to have an unfettered relationship with JC.

Back in 1980, the place to be for JC and other underage students on Friday nights was the Time and Tide hotel, the court was told.

There were often teachers there, including Mr Dawson and occasionally his twin brother Paul.

JC said she was surprised to see Chris Dawson, who was studying at university at the time.

“They told their wives that they were going to the library,” she said.

In the middle of 1980, JC and a friend went to Narrabeen to help Mr Dawson with a school carnival.

As they sat together at the finish line, on the bottom step of a tiered judges’ podium, “he put his hand on my leg”, she said.

From the time she got her learner’s permit, it was Mr Dawson who taught her to drive.

They would cruise around Sydney’s Dee Why area, where she lived, the court was told.

Once, during the day, they parked at Dee Why Beach. While they sat there with the car parked, Mr Dawson referred to a friend of hers, named Ross.

“You make me feel like an older Ross,” he told her.

JC told the court: “He kissed me. That was the first time he tried to kiss me.”

Prosecutor Craig Everson SC asked for the court to be closed to the public and media to hear legally sensitive evidence.

When it reopened, JC talked about her time at the Dawson family home in Bayview, explaining why she had been topless in the pool.

This had been witnessed by suspicious neighbour Julie Andrew, the first to give evidence at the trial.

All her friends wore bikini bottoms, JC said.

“We never wore tops. It was just the fashion then.”

JC also told the court of the violence in her own home before she moved in with Chris and Lyn Dawson.

Her mother’s husband – not her father – was “very violent”, aggressive and controlling, and it was getting harder to deal with at the time, she said.

“It was very upsetting. I would try to get away from the violent outbursts by staying in my room with the door closed,” she added.

There was a time she stepped in to protect her mother, “and he (her stepfather) hit me”.

Her father took her to Chatswood police station to lodge a complaint. She had to leave, and “Chris Dawson offered me a room”.

JC moved in with Chris and Lyn around October 1981, and stayed for several weeks. It was three months before Lyn vanished.

Mr Dawson was no longer her physical education teacher when she was staying at the Bayview home.

Recounting how Mr Dawson would mix alcoholic drinks for his wife, JC said Lyn would then fall asleep in a chair or excuse herself and go to bed.

JC said Mr Dawson would then want to have sex.

Asked if it had happened, she said “yes” and confirmed they had had sex in the bedroom the Dawsons had given her.

One afternoon after school, JC visited Mr Dawson in hospital where he had undergone surgery.

She sat on the bed and wiped the end of his nose, then left to work a shift at Coles.

When she returned home to the Dawsons’ house in Bayview, Lyn confronted her, saying: “You’ve been taking liberties with my husband.”

JC said: “She realised there was something more going on than just nose wiping.”

That night, JC slept at Paul Dawson’s home, staying there until finishing high school that year.

She never saw Lyn again.

JC and Mr Dawson went on to marry and have a daughter.

When they separated in 1990, Mr Dawson told her to destroy his love notes and cards, JC told the court. She kept some, reading from them in court. One reads: “Once or twice every minute, love always, GOD.”

The court has been told JC gave her first statement to police about Lyn’s disappearance in May 1990, while she and Mr Dawson were going through a divorce.

She will continue testifying on Thursday.

Mr Dawson has pleaded not guilty, and his defence legal team will intensely question JC’s evidence and credibility.

She has been called JC in court due to her age when events occurred.