Chris Dawson and the long road to justice

A 40-year-old mystery, subject of The Teacher’s Pet podcast, has made it to court. But this will be no trial by media.

Chris Dawson arrives at the Supreme Court in Sydney. The ex-Newtown Jets player and school teacher is charged with murdering his wife Lynette in 1982. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw

Monday, May 9, 2022. After 40 years, day one of Christopher Michael Dawson’s murder trial is finally upon us. Umbrellas are up, shielding against light rain. Roadworks roar to life next to the front steps of the courthouse, the sound relentless and deafening between the tall city buildings. If Dawson is going to say a few words when he arrives, it’s doubtful he’ll be heard over the din.

At 9am, half an hour before the trial is scheduled to start, rubbish bins on the street outside the 27-storey Law Courts Building in Queens Square, Sydney, are overflowing. Office workers bustle past in all directions. Life in Australia’s biggest city goes on as normal as a handful of TV cameras, photographers and journalists waits for Dawson on the front steps.

In the end, he walks through a separate side entrance for lawyers and staff, shuffling past another small media pack covering all bases. He’s with his long-time solicitor, Greg Walsh. Both stare straight ahead and are silent when a TV reporter tries a couple of rapid-fire questions: “How are you today, Mr Dawson? Did you ever think this day would happen?”

LISTEN HERE: Episode 1 of Hedley Thomas’ new podcast The Teacher’s Trial is available wherever you listen to podcasts or just press play here.

A day earlier, as he boarded a flight to Sydney from Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, he was more responsive when approached by a lone TV crew.

“I’m looking forward to justice being served and the truth coming (out) in the next few weeks. I just want the truth to come out,” he said then.

Dawson is accused of the murder of his wife, Lynette, a doting mother of two little girls, who vanished from Sydney’s northern beaches in January 1982.

LISTEN: The Teacher’s Trial podcast

Back then, Dawson and twin brother Paul were high school physical education teachers and former professional footballers. They were well known, particularly on the northern beaches, or so-called “insular peninsular”, playing in the same teams together – first in rugby union with Easts and then rugby league with the Newtown Jets.

Lynette was a trained nurse and was working as a part-time childcare worker when she disappeared. Her daughters, Shanelle and Sherryn, were aged four and two. She had tried hard with her husband for several years to have children, seeking various medical assistance, and was looking to adopt before falling pregnant with the girls.

For 36 years, the wheels of justice turned slowly with no resolution. Then in December 2018, Dawson was arrested and extradited to NSW.

It followed the launch earlier that year of investigative podcast The Teacher’s Pet, by The Australian’s Hedley Thomas, which brought global attention to the case of a missing woman suspected by her family, friends and police to have been murdered and disposed of.

Police forensic officers dig the garden of the former Dawson home in search of Lyn's body. Picture: Jane Dempster

Dawson has pleaded not guilty, and to his lawyers and backers, including family members who have stuck by him for the past four decades, it’s all a police and media witch hunt.

The Supreme Court murder trial will be no trial by media; it will be tried by a highly experienced judge, Ian Harrison.

Compared to the street outside, inside the court building is an oasis of calm. Dawson goes straight to level nine to face his fate.

He’s 73 years old and his receding grey hair is cropped short. He’s over six feet tall and walks with a limp, his health issues repeatedly mentioned by his legal team.

A fall outside his Peregian Beach unit was followed by another inside. He is said to have lost consciousness, waking to find there was blood on the tile floor and that he had a broken hip and ribs.

Separated from his third wife, Sue, for many months, he is suffering a major depressive illness and is suicidal, his lawyers say.

None of that is obvious on the surface on trial day one. He appears meticulously groomed, is dressed in a dark blue suit and crisp white shirt with a striped tie, and looks fit for his age.

Two weeks before his trial, pictures of him out and about with Sue appeared on the Daily Mail website; they were out shopping together for household items at Target and sat down for a meal. Day one attracts surprisingly few people, aside from those legally required to be there. Office chairs wheeled into the back of courtroom 9D for the public are mostly empty. A total of three people are in the makeshift public gallery. One is a family member: David Jenkins, eldest son of Lynette’s sister, Pat Jenkins.

Lynette’s brother, Greg Simms, and sister Pat are witnesses and by convention aren’t allowed in court until they’ve given evidence.

Tables reserved for the news media aren’t full, primarily due to an audiovisual link being provided to journalists and some family members to watch the trial online.

Since Dawson’s arrest, life has been upturned by the pandemic. The legal profession has not been immune. Jury trials were temporarily suspended, courts closed to the media and the public, and the floodgates opened for witnesses to testify remotely via video.

Things are returning to normal, but there’s an ongoing Covid hangover. Everyone still has to wear masks while in the building, and anyone can end up in isolation at any time – the judge’s associate couldn’t attend a pre-trial hearing last week after contracting the virus.

Dawson and his lawyers had fought hard to permanently halt the trial, on the grounds pre-trial publicity and the 40-year delay in prosecuting him meant he couldn’t receive a fair one.

Rebuffed by the NSW Supreme Court, the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal and the High Court, Dawson then sought a judge-alone trial, arguing there would be no way to find 12 jurors who weren’t influenced by the podcast and the firestorm it generated.

Chris and Lynette on their wedding day.

A week before the trial’s start, it was decided by a separate judge, Robert Beech-Jones, that the case would be heard before Justice Harrison alone rather than a jury. Prosecutor Craig Everson SC had opposed it, arguing the case involved drawing inferences from human behaviour and should be tried by people of “diverse ages, backgrounds, experiences and genders”.

In court on trial day one, Dawson’s lawyers argue for the truth to come out later rather than sooner, joining the prosecution in calling for a total media blackout until some time after it has been completed. This is to protect a criminal trial due to take place after this one. Justice Harrison finds public interest in the trial trumps all else, and refuses.

Then it’s on.

Defence barrister Pauline David wants more time to consider the 11,000-page brief of evidence she received last month. But the judge wants to hear the prosecutor’s opening address.

Everson is ready and opens by saying Chris and Lynette Dawson married in 1970. They were unable to have children at the same time as Dawson’s twin brother. Paul. and his wife. Marilyn. It led Dawson to have a “level of animosity” towards Lynette. The opening takes a surprise twist when Everson mentions, seemingly from left field, Muhammad Ali’s heavyweight bout with Joe Frazier of October 1, 1975.

The famous “Thrilla in Manilla” was watched by members of the Newtown rugby league team who had travelled to the Gold Coast for an end-of-season holiday. On the return flight in an aisle seat was Robert Silkman, “a man with some admitted criminal connections”, Everson says.

“He was approached by Chris Dawson, the accused. The two of them were well known to each other, having played football together in the second grade side at Newtown. And the crown alleges that the accused asked Mr Silkman if he knew someone who could get rid of his wife.”

Silkman’s allegations are new and had been kept under wraps. He had come forward and given a statement to police in November 2018. Fourteen episodes of The Teacher’s Pet had been released by that point. The following month, the NSW Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions decided to prosecute Dawson for murder and he was arrested.

Everson’s opening address was an outline of the allegations against Dawson. It touched on only some of the evidence, and the theme of the crown’s case over the coming weeks – that Dawson was infatuated with a teenager, Joanne Curtis, who had been one of his students and who had become the family’s babysitter.

Lyn Dawson vasnished in 1982. Picture: Justin Lloyd.

A week after Lynette vanished, Curtis moved into the home Dawson and Lynette built at Bayview. Dawson allegedly told his young lover “Lynette was gone and she wouldn’t be coming back”, Everson said. Reported sightings of Lynette would be shown to be wrong, he said.

Referred to as JC in court, she alleges that in 1981 Dawson talked about getting a hit man to kill his wife. No one had reported speaking to Lynette other than her husband, who claimed she went to stay with friends on the Central Coast and needed time to sort things out.

When Dawson left the court on Monday he was asked by a journalist if he was happy it was finally under way. “Yes, very happy,” he replied.

The court resumed briefly for legal argument on Wednesday. This time, there were 15 people at the back of the court and no spare chairs as word spread it was under way. Everson flagged with the court that Dawson was expected to ask the judge to take into account evidence he is of good character. It will be challenged by the prosecutor, who had already provided material that would “rebut that”.

Justice Harrison has said he expects to reserve his decision and then spend time preparing written findings. The trial was adjourned to Monday, when Lynette’s neighbour and friend, Julie Andrew, will be the first witness. Andrew has been a fierce advocate for Lynette, and her voice is one of the first to be heard on each episode of The Teacher’s Pet.