Chris Dawson likely to die in jail

Chris Dawson and AB on their wedding day.

Given his age, the extra three-year sentence added to the 24-year jail term Christopher Michael Dawson, 75, is serving for the murder of his first wife, Lynette Simms, may never be served – he is more likely to die first. The new sentence, to start in 2039, has a two-year non-parole period and will extend Dawson’s mandatory time behind bars by an extra year, to August 2041. By then he will be 93 years old. And, under new laws in NSW, achieved by a campaign led by Lyn’s grieving family, Dawson will not be eligible for parole at all unless he reveals what he did with Lyn’s body.

The new sentence, delivered by judge Sarah Huggett in the NSW District Court on Friday, for Dawson’s unlawful carnal knowledge of a 16-year-old schoolgirl, known as AB, who later became his second wife and then his accuser, sends an important message. Child sexual abuse in any setting, however long ago, must never be ignored or go unpunished.

Dawson, a former high school physical education teacher who taught AB at Cromer High on Sydney’s northern beaches, was exposed as a killer and predator by national chief correspondent Hedley Thomas in 2018 in The Australian’s global blockbuster podcast, The Teacher’s Pet. After murdering Lyn – the mother of his two daughters – in January 1982, and disposing of her body in a place unknown, he moved to Queensland with AB, with whom he had another daughter.

During the podcast, it was reported it was the norm in the 1970s and ’80s for teachers to prey on students for sex at northern beaches high schools. Those predators, where possible, must be dealt with under the law.