Chris Dawson committal: Couple saw Lyn Dawson working as a nurse in 1984, court hears

Jill and Peter Breese, who had a property that backed onto the Dawson home, ‘saw’ Lyn two years after she went missing.

More than two years after her disappearance, Lyn Dawson was allegedly seen working as a nurse at a private hospital on Sydney’s northern beaches.

“I looked at her, she looked at me, turned around and went. And I never saw her again,’’ Peter Breese told Downing Centre local centre on Wednesday.

Mr Breese was giving evidence at the committal hearing of former Newtown Jets rugby league star Chris Dawson, charged with the murder of his wife, Lyn, in January 1982.

At the time of the alleged sighting, Mr Breese was recovering from major nasal surgery at

Rockcastle hospital at Curl Curl in June 1984.

Chris Dawson, left, and his lawyer Greg Walsh, right, at Downing Centre Local Court in Sydney. Picture: AAP

He said he knew Ms Dawson, though not well, because he and his wife Jill lived at a property that backed onto hers at Bayview on Sydney’s northside in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Both Mr Breese and his wife spoke to Ms Dawson as neighbours only once, when she invited them into her home to inspect a faulty chimney because they had one installed recently as well.

During his six-day hospital stay in June 1984, Mr Breese said a nurse appeared at his door.

He claimed he recognised the woman as Ms Dawson, and she recognised him. Neither spoke before the woman “turned on her heels’’ and left. The incident lasted five to 10 seconds, Mr Breese said.

During earlier evidence on Wednesday, Mr Breese’s wife Jill also said she recognised Ms Dawson on a separate occasion when visiting her husband at the hospital during his stay.

Ms Breese said while sitting at her husband’s bedside, a nurse walked past and stood at a nurses’ station. While she believed she recognised the woman as Ms Dawson, they did not speak.

It was a “possibility’’ she was mistaken about the nurse being Lyn, but didn’t believe so, she said.

Both told the court they only became aware of Ms Dawson’s disappearance much later, when they saw a Manly Daily article listing missing persons with her name and photograph. The court was told this was around 1987 or 1988.

Phsycic medium Debbie Malone leaves Downing Centre Local Court. Picture: AAP

Ms Breese said she phoned police and was “shocked’’ when an officer called back the same day and said detectives believed Ms Dawson was “under the pool’’ at the Dawson property.

In his evidence, Mr Breese said he later phoned Sydney’s The Rocks police station after seeing another Manly Daily report on Ms Dawson’s disappearance. The report said a new officer, detective Damian Loone, was investigating.

This time Mr Breese, a former Boral concrete company executive, spoke to a female constable for 20 to 25 minutes, and believed she took notes.

No one called him back until 2019 when he was contacted by detectives.

The couple gave statements on June 5, more than six months after Mr Dawson’s arrest in December 2018.

Mr Dawson, sitting in the front row of the public gallery, appeared amused when Ms Breese recounted him asking her and her husband to keep the Dawsons’ cat and two dogs because he was moving out in 1984. The Breeses agreed to take one of the dogs, a dalmatian called Greta.

The couple’s daughter had taken a special interest after hearing The Teacher’s Pet, a 2018 podcast on Ms Dawson’s disappearance by The Australian’s national chief correspondent Hedley Thomas.

In an attempt to confirm dates, they had contacted Mr Breese’s surgeon, the Manly Daily and the hospital where he was treated, renamed South Pacific, none of which had old records.

Psychic medium Debbie Malone also gave evidence on Wednesday, after Crown prosecutor Craig Everson made it clear she was “a person who forms no part of the prosecution case’’.

Ms Malone said that after watching part of an episode of the ABC’s Australian Story on Ms Dawson’s disappearance in 2003, she had felt the missing mother’s “spirit’’ and immediately concluded she was dead.

“I have the ability to see people who are deceased and to communicate with them,’’ she said.

She contacted the program’s producers, who put her in touch with lead investigator Mr Loone to offer assistance.

“He said that he was open,’’ she said.

Ms Malone, Mr Loone and Lyn’s siblings Greg Simms and Pat Jenkins met at Ms Jenkins’s home on October 9, 2003 and recorded a video.

Phillip Boulten, SC, for Mr Dawson, asked pointed questions about whether Mr Loone had challenged her credibility.

“He said he was sceptical but it was worth doing because there were other lines of inquiry that could come out of it,’’ she said.

She told the court she had the “gift of psychometry’’, where she could hold objects connected to a person to see glimpses of their life.

Ms Dawson’s family gave her a watch belonging to Ms Dawson’s mother, along with Ms Dawson’s bracelet.

“I’m a clairvoyant so I can hear her speak to me and when I tune into an item or a photograph it’s like watching television to me,’’ she said.

Ms Malone, Ms Jenkins and Mr Simms later met outside the former Dawson family home at Bayview. Mr Loone was unavailable at the time because he had moved to the major crime squad.

“I felt she was located in an area close to a big rock at the back of the house near the fire trail. It was somewhere in that vicinity,’’ she said.

Ms Malone also said she had been unaware audio from her police recording was going to be used in The Teacher’s Pet. She had a friendship with Mr Simms and called him to say she was disappointed material involving her was included and “nobody had bothered to speak to me about it’’.

Cold-case detectives had not contacted her since renewing investigations into the disappearance in 2015.