Chris Dawson case: Harrowing tale of marriage in decay

At midday on Thursday, as the witness JC in the Chris Dawson murder trial was set to be cross-examined, a robust chess match was unfolding in nearby Hyde Park.

Chris Dawson. Picture: AAP

At midday on Thursday, as the witness JC in the Chris Dawson murder trial was set to be cross-examined in the NSW Supreme Court in Sydney, a robust chess match was unfolding in nearby Hyde Park.

The famous oversized chess board in the park’s north, with its knee-high plastic pieces, is a local attraction, and in the cool shade of a giant fig two elderly men were in the nail-biting final throes of a match.

One spectator provided running commentary. “You can still hit his queen with your knight,” he said. “He’s dug himself into a hole. Tell him bye bye. He’s gone. Play it out. See what happens. Play it out.”

What was about to play out in Supreme Court 9D was not, on the surface, dissimilar to the chess endgame under the figs.

JC, the schoolgirl babysitter and lover of former Newtown Jets rugby league player and teacher Chris Dawson, now 73 – who has pleaded not guilty to murdering his wife, Lyn, in 1982 – was cross-examined by defence barrister Pauline David before the Honourable Ian Harrison.

Dressed in dark slacks and an apricot blouse, JC had spent the morning concluding her evidence in chief.

Under questioning from Craig Everson SC, she told the court that before October 1981, when she moved into the Dawson family home at Bayview Heights on Sydney’s northern beaches, Dawson drove her into the western suburbs of the city, parked the car near a building and told her to wait.

“I asked what was that about and he said, ‘I went inside to get a hitman to kill Lyn then I decided I wouldn’t do it because innocent people could be killed, could be hurt’,” she told the court.

She also talked about a trip she took to South West Rocks on the NSW North Coast with friends in early 1982. Dawson phoned her every day and encouraged her to come back to Sydney.

JC said during one call they mentioned Dawson’s wife and he allegedly said to her: “Lyn’s gone, she’s not coming back. Come back to Sydney and help me look after the children, be with me.”

She said Dawson drove her back from South West Rocks to Sydney on or about January 10 or 11, 1982, and that when they arrived back at Bayview Heights, there was nobody in the house.

That night, and then every night, she told the court, she slept “in Lyn’s bed”.

Barrister David, with a splendid pearly necklace hidden under her white bib, cross-examined with a quiet determination. And JC held her ground.

Yet what followed throughout the day was to every sentient being in that court both harrowing and exhausting.

This was a story of the disintegration of a marriage between JC, now 58, and Dawson. The struggles inherent in raising young children. Allegations of physical and psychological violence. ­Alleged vendettas. Accusations that Dawson had “groomed” the schoolgirl JC.

And counter-accusations that JC was deliberately trying to ­“destroy” Dawson with lies and falsehoods.

The court heard that JC and Dawson had married in 1984, two years after Lyn Dawson dis­appeared in January 1982, had a child together and then divorced in 1990.

David questioned JC about Dawson calling his wife “fatso”, suggesting he did no such thing.

JC: “He did, often.”

David: “You’re saying it in your mission to destroy Mr ­Dawson.”

JC: “No.”

David: “I also want to suggest he never said anything demeaning about the appearance of Lyn Dawson to you.”

JC: “That’s a lie.”

JC was also questioned about her allegation that on their wedding day, after the guests had gone, Dawson allegedly put his hands around her throat in a threatening manner.

She was asked why over the years she never told police about the incident.

David: “Are you seriously suggesting you couldn’t recall when asked by police if he was ever violent to you … you forgot that on your wedding day he put his hands around your throat to choke you?”

JC: “He’d been violent before. Maybe I tried to block it out on a day supposed to be happy.”

David suggested JC was again trying to destroy Mr Dawson.

JC: “I’m not trying to destroy him, he’ll destroy himself from what he’s done to other people, to Lyn, to me. It’s the truth.”

It was that sort of day. Brutal. Raw. An ebb and flow of human emotion.

Unlike the chess match in Hyde Park, it became very clear this was not a game and, going on Thursday’s evidence, there are never any winners. And this trial is a long way from playing out.