Chris Dawson case: Courting headlines, witnesses fear no mayday over memories

Again and again through witness testimony, references were made to the paucity of human memory over time in the Chris Dawson trial.

Chris Dawson outside the Supreme Court in Sydney on Tuesday. Picture NCA Newswire / Gaye Gerard

Bawdy American actor and playwright Mae West once said: “I ­enjoyed the courtroom as just ­another stage but not so amusing as Broadway.”

She knew a little about courts. West was successfully prosecuted on morals charges over her play, Sex, and spent 10 days in prison in the 1920s.

Almost a century later, the murder trial of former rugby league player and schoolteacher Chris Dawson in the NSW ­Supreme Court didn’t aspire to Broadway by any stretch of the imagination on Tuesday, not even off-off Broadway, but shafts of ­humour did occasionally penetrate the gravity.

Judge Ian Harrison – the trial steward who has thus far guided proceedings with restraint, intelligence and breathtaking efficiency – showed a flash of the comic when witness Annette Leary, in her mid-80s, was asked by legal counsel precisely where she was on July 28, 1990.

“What significance does that have?” she asked the court.

“Don’t worry about its significance,” His Honour interjected. “You’ve been given the opportunity to amaze us all if you can tell us.”

To which the court broke into a rare moment of laughter. Because the rest of the day carried its own burdens.

Again and again through witness testimony, references were made to the paucity of human memory over time – more ­precisely from when Lyn Dawson, mother of two children, supposedly disappeared on or around January 8, 1982, and the present-day murder trial of her husband, now 73, four decades later.

As predicted by crown prosecutor Craig Everson SC, the trial was now moving forward at a “clipping” place, and on Tuesday the witnesses largely centred on Lyn’s co-workers at the Warriewood children’s daycare facility on Sydney’s northern beaches just prior to her disappearance.

Former childcare worker Ms Leary, via video link, had given evidence that Lyn had told her that when she and husband Chris had an appointment for a marriage counselling session on Friday, January 8, Chris had gripped Lyn’s throat and shaken her, ­allegedly saying “if this doesn’t work I’m getting rid of you, I’m only doing it once”.

Ms Leary said it was her impression that Lyn didn’t think Chris was serious, and indeed other former colleagues said that that Friday afternoon they witnessed Lyn and Chris return to the daycare centre after the ­therapy session and that the ­couple were holding hands and appeared happy.

Defence counsel Pauline David at one point asked Ms Leary if it was possible that over time she was mistaken about some of her remembered facts.

The witness laughed quietly with the gentle confidence that only a good, long life can give.

“Is it possible you’re confused?” Ms David asked.

“No,” Ms Leary said with a smile creasing the corners of her eyes.

Another colleague of Lyn’s, Sue Strath, remembered her co-worker as an “affectionate fun-loving mum” who adored her daughters and her husband too. “He was on (a) pedestal to her,” she told the court.

In Ms Strath’s evidence, as in Ms Leary’s, these workmates remembered moments of potential marital strife beneath a seemingly harmonious surface.

In Ms Strath’s case, Lyn allegedly confided in her that she had seen the babysitter, JC, swimming naked in their family pool at their Bayview Heights home.

And that Lyn hadn’t had a happy Christmas in 1981 because Chris had left the home but had since returned. “She was very hopeful for the future,” Ms Strath told the court.

Other witnesses, including JC’s older sister, BC, again underlined the damage of the passage of time.

Mr Dawson’s solicitor, Greg Walsh, got straight to the point.

“Do you agree that trying to recall events 40 years later is a difficult thing?” he asked BC.

“Yes,” she said quietly.

Chris Dawson has pleaded not guilty to murder.