Chris Dawson: murder of Lyn Dawson a case of good v evil
Almost 41 years to the day of his sentencing, back at the start of the summer of 1981, Chris Dawson was entering a spiral of his own making that ultimately led to his wife Lyn’s slaying.
On Friday afternoon, immediately after convicted wife murderer Christopher Dawson was sentenced to 24 years jail, his loyal solicitor Greg Walsh quietly packed up his paperwork and headed back to his office, sandwiched as it is between a cafe and a bottle shop in suburban Oatley, south of Sydney’s CBD.
Walsh’s legal journey with Dawson – after four long years – was officially over.
Walsh had already asked NSW Senior Public Defender Belinda Rigg SC to take over Dawson’s future appeal. He reasoned the Public Defenders Office resources were greater than his, and more importantly, the Dawson case had “taken its toll” on him.
‘CAN YOU HELP MY BROTHER?’
The affable, courteous Walsh, 68, had been giving legal counsel to Dawson since the former schoolteacher and Sydney rugby league star was arrested for the murder of his wife, Lyn Dawson, in December 2018. In essence, Walsh had stood by Dawson from day one.
“Peter Dawson turned up here (at the Oatley office) one day,” Walsh remembered. “I think I’d met Peter in the past. He said it was about his brother, it was urgent and he came here … he had a large number of folders with him and said, ‘Look, Greg, can you help my brother? He’s just been arrested and charged with murder.’
“That’s how I got the case.”
For the duration of the Dawson odyssey, from initial bail applications to attempts by Dawson to have the trial permanently stayed to the committal, the judge-alone trial and now sentencing in the Supreme Court in Sydney, Walsh had been there. Walsh’s countenance, in his court appearances and particularly throughout Dawson’s trial, was consistently measured and experienced and he served as something of a legal anchor when the defence’s momentum threatened to wobble out of shape.
Over those years he’d taken to the steps of various courthouses and fielded questions about Dawson from media packs. In many of those encounters he addressed some of the reporters by their first names.
Chris Dawson, then 70, was arrested in Queensland on December 5, 2018, and extradited to Sydney where he was charged with murder. He was initially denied bail but was ultimately granted strict conditional bail on December 17 of that year.
Walsh defended his client outside court after the bail decision.
“There’s no evidence of (him being a) flight risk in that sense, that over all these years he’s not chosen to go anywhere,” said Walsh. “He has been overseas on occasions, on holidays, and always returned. He’s been through two coronial inquests. There’s no real risk here in this case.
“(It’s) been a very difficult thing to be locked up 24 hours a day and I’m not seeking sympathy for him, but he hasn’t been in custody before. There were threats. There are ongoing threats, and that’s a very stressful situation to be in.
“I don’t want to go into the particulars, but there’s been threats against him. There have been threats against his brother and myself. So it’s unpleasant, if I could use that term.”
A LONG, CELEBRATED LEGAL CAREER
Admitted as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of NSW in December 1976, there was very little Walsh hadn’t seen in his long and distinguished legal career.
(Which has included a Medal of the Order of Australia for his services to the law, and particularly his dedication to pro bono work.)
He acted for disgraced Australian television actor of Hey Dad! fame, Robert Hughes, who in 2014 pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of child sexual abuse.
Hughes was ultimately convicted of several counts of sexual and indecent assault, and was sentenced to almost 11 years in prison.
But the matter of Christopher Michael Dawson was like nothing he had ever encountered.
In May 2018, The Australian’s National Chief Correspondent Hedley Thomas released the first episodes of The Teacher’s Pet, a deep-dive podcast that examined the disappearance of Lyn Dawson from Sydney’s Northern Beaches in January 1982. Thomas had for years been fascinated by her case.
The podcast immediately attracted fresh witnesses and exposed new evidence.
It also shone a light on poor police work early in the investigation into Lyn’s supposed disappearance, eliciting an apology from then NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller.
The Teacher’s Pet caught fire around the world, attracting tens of millions of listeners.
Then in September 2018, police conducted a forensic excavation at the couple’s former family home in Bayview, near Pittwater. No new evidence linked to the old mystery was uncovered.
But on December 5, Chris Dawson was arrested and charged with murder.
“It was an unprecedented case,” Walsh said this week. “But as you would understand it, because of my experience in other cases, such as the Robert Hughes case, that case was the subject of enormous publicity as well, but it was not … the juggernaut that this case presented.
“And this case presented with extreme … difficulties because of the electronic way in which it was reported. Every day in court, every step taken in the matter, was the subject of examination.
“That does have an impact upon you as a human being and as a lawyer. You know, I have found I’ve worked seven days a week ever since taking on the case, not only on his matter … and the fact that you are subject to such scrutiny.
People might think, oh, you know, he loves that. He loves the attention … (but) it sort of infiltrates your soul. It’s sort of gets through your skin.
“Every day and every night there was a new battle.”
CONTACT WITH LYN’S FAMILY RAISES EYEBROWS
Of all the members of Dawson’s legal team during the trial from May to July this year, Walsh was the only one who made informal contact with others in Court 9D of the Supreme Court, from journalists and the prosecution team through to Lyn Dawson’s own family. Lyn’s brother, Greg Simms, his wife Merilyn, and their daughter Renee were present for virtually every minute of the trial.
There was a growing sense as the trial wore on, however, that there was discontent within Team Dawson, his defence led by then barrister Pauline David, now a District Court judge.
For whatever reason, as Dawson sat in his same seat beneath the courtroom clock each day, from the point of view of the public gallery a tangible but unsourced tension had developed among his legal team, perhaps understandable given what was at stake – the freedom of a human being.
And that momentary disharmony may have simply reflected the mounting pressure in a case that captured both national and international attention on the back of The Teacher’s Pet.
Still, the gently gregarious Walsh became less convivial as the trial wore on and was often seen sitting alone in the vestibule of the court, riffling through paperwork.
Sources said he was criticised by his own team for making contact with opposing parties within the court.
“I think it’s very important that you, as a criminal lawyer, don’t lose sight of the fact that you’re not the judge of a person’s guilt,” Walsh said. “You are doing your very best for the client consistent with your duty to the client and also to the law and the court. But being courteous to, you know, victims, complainants, witnesses, police, is not inconsistent with your duty.
“The fact that I know I have been courteous and spoke to (Lyn Dawson’s) immediate family doesn’t mean I’m not maintaining my duty to the client. It just means I’m a human being.”
And maintaining human civility mustn’t have been easy given the tortuous longevity of the Dawson case. Over four decades potential witnesses passed away, memories faded, and important documents were lost.
THE LONG ROAD TO A GUILTY VERDICT
The vast distance between the crime itself and the delivery of justice was not amenable to either the defence or the prosecution.
What didn’t change was the dedication of Lyn’s family to seek and secure justice for Lyn, a devoted mother and a loving and loyal wife, as the trial revealed. Friends and family gave heartbreaking evidence about her, how she would never wilfully abandon her two young children, how she worshipped her “Chrissy”, the famous Newtown Jets player and fashion model, and how she couldn’t make sense of the disintegration of her marriage in late 1981.
The trial learned of Dawson’s almost adolescent obsession with the family’s babysitter and teenage student of Dawson’s – JC – at Cromer High, where he worked as a PE teacher. The court witnessed the cards and love notes he wrote to her. And learned that Dawson had invited JC to live in the family home at Bayview in late 1981. Here was the caring teacher, Dawson, looking after the welfare of a young woman with a troubled family life.
They became lovers, the court was told.
JC herself was a witness. She was strong, defiant, immovable in reflecting on her younger self and her predicament, convinced she was “groomed” by Dawson. That she became his sex slave. That when Lyn disappeared, she also became an instant mother to Lyn’s two little girls.
It was harrowing testimony. A testament to the character of JC. But no less appalling and tragic. Even some court staff quietly shook their heads as she told her story. Justice Ian Harrison found her a credible witness.
The trial had a furphy or two. A witness for the prosecution who alleged that Dawson had approached him seeking a hitman to kill his wife. And another for the defence who claimed he had bumped into a young woman who matched Lyn’s description drinking in a bar soon after Lyn actually disappeared, saying the woman had essentially faked her own vanishing in order to set up her husband for murder.
Days of the trial, too, were dedicated to the defence’s assertion that Lyn Dawson had been seen at several locations around Sydney and on the NSW Central Coast months and years after she had disappeared. If true, the argument went, how could Chris Dawson have murdered her in early January 1982?
In the end, the veracity of the sightings evaporated.
Crown Prosecutor Craig Everson SC and his team were organised, thorough, presented their case with chilling clarity and never lost sight of their objective.
The defence had its stumbles and air pockets along the way but picked up momentum towards the end of the trial.
It mattered little.
DAUGHTERS LIVE WITH UNENDING ‘TORTURE’
Justice Harrison, in an astonishingly meticulous judgment, deconstructed Chris Dawson’s infrastructure of lies, built over decades, and reduced them to ash. In the end, on the strength of Justice Harrison’s reasoning, there was only one truth left standing in the wreckage.
Christopher Dawson had murdered his wife, Lynette Dawson.
During Dawson’s sentencing hearing last month (November), the court heard wrenching impact statements, particularly from Chris and Lyn’s oldest daughter, Shanelle, who was four years old when her mother disappeared.
Shanelle looked across the court at her father sitting in the dock in his prison greens. Their eyes met briefly. But for the duration of her recitation, he kept his gaze fixed to the floor.
“The night you removed our Mother from our lives, was the night you destroyed my sense of safety and belonging in this world for many decades to come,” an emotional Shanelle told the court.
“Almost all of the love, nurturing and kindness vanished from my life. Because of your selfish actions, we will never see her again, we will never hear her tell us she loves us, feel her hold us or hear her laugh.”
And at the end: “It hurts me deeply to think of you in jail, for the rest of your life. But I also choose not to carry your burdens anymore. I need my life back.
“My daughter needs me back and not overwhelmed by grief anymore. This is how I will honour my beautiful Mother.
“The torture of not knowing what happened, or what you did with her body, please tell us where she is.
“I hope you will finally admit the truth to yourself and give us the last bit of closure we need, to make at least partial peace with this horrible tragedy.”
KILLER ‘STOIC’ AS WORLD FALLS APART
Christopher Dawson, now 74, will most likely die in jail.
Walsh says Dawson’s family has not abandoned him.
“I’m sure his twin Paul contacts him and Peter (Dawson’s older brother) also calls him regularly,” said Walsh.
“But can I just say this – Chris Dawson presents with an enormous amount of stoicism. It’s a remarkable trait. You know, he is stoic. He’s a stoic individual.
“And I’m not suggesting that he’s not hurting inside, but he has this remarkable … it’s sort of like a discipline or an inner strength.
“Even though he physically is suffering and especially in the sense that he’s in pain with his hip and his shoulders and his knees and all that, that he seems to have this stoic trait like a soldier under arms. He’s like one of those great Greek soldiers (from history) that sometimes have to walk, you know, 80km a day to get to the next battle.”
What was it, though, that saw the Dawson case elevate from local suburban murder to a lightning rod for international attention? What was it about this story that captured the world?
“I think the factors were that a relatively young, devoted mother, a wife and mother had disappeared, and now appeared murdered,” Walsh surmised.
“That in itself is not unique. But I think what was extremely important in this case was the fact that she had the quality, as one would expect of all mothers, that quality of being a lovely person, a devoted mother and a devoted wife.
“Now, I’m not trying to say that other victims don’t have those qualities. But I think that what captured the imagination, if that’s the term, or captured the attention of society, was the fact that she was a person who by repute and by all accounts, was a beautiful person. Now that may sound odd. I’m not meaning to sound callous by saying that.
“I mean, it was her personality traits and her wonderful devotion and love of others that meant that it was highly improbable that she would have disappeared.
“Now he says she did. The law says she didn’t. That’s the conundrum.
“But so far as the public were concerned, they believed that she met with foul play. That’s a cornerstone of the case. And the fact that it appeared that justice had not been done was also a very important factor, that the people were driven to obtain justice for Lyn and her immediate family and extended family and the community. That captured the attention or imagination of the community.
“The universality of the case is the goodness in some, and I can’t use a better term, the particular badness in others. You know what I mean? The contrast between the goodness and the (perceived) badness.”
Was it simply a matter of good versus evil?
“People … wanted to contribute and say, well, this is wrong,” said Walsh. “This is unfair. This is unjust. And I want to do something about it.”
CHRIS ‘WILL GO TO THE GRAVE’ WITH THE TRUTH
Dawson is currently incarcerated in Sydney’s Silverwater Correctional Centre in the city’s west. In September he was moved to the Macquarie Correctional Centre north of Wellington, in central NSW, because of concerns for his safety.
But he was returned to Silverwater for the first tranche of his sentencing hearing in Sydney last month.
Almost 41 years to the day of his sentencing, back at the start of the summer of 1982, Chris Dawson was entering the spiral of his own making that ultimately led to his wife Lyn’s slaying.
At the epicentre of that spiral was his desire for an “unfettered” relationship with the teenager JC, who he would go on to marry and have a child with.
Sources close to Dawson said one thing remained absolutely certain. He will never admit to the murder, let alone reveal the whereabouts of Lyn Dawson’s remains, despite his daughter Shanelle’s heartfelt plea.
“He will go to his grave with that belief,” the source said.
The stoic Dawson case may remind Greg Walsh of a Greek soldier.
Unequivocally, though, this case bears every characteristic of a Greek tragedy – defined by the Collins Dictionary as such: (in Ancient Greek theatre) a play in which the protagonist, usually a person of importance and outstanding personal qualities, falls to disaster through the combination of a personal failing and circumstances with which he or she cannot deal.
“There are no winners, with the greatest of respect,” Walsh said. “Look at the reality. Lynette is gone. A mother has been lost. A sister has been lost. A daughter has been lost. People grieve for that loss. They grieve every day.
“Mr Dawson has been convicted of a crime. His daughters have lost … to a large extent their relationship with their father and their mother. And this is a loss that’s now felt in the context of … the (saturated) media scrutiny over the years.
They lost contact with their Dad. They can only speak to him on the phone unless they are able to come down from Queensland or wherever they live to go and visit him in jail, which is always a difficult thing.
“But they’ve lost their father and mother. So that is a tremendous loss. Now, I could, as a human being, just ignore that. But I can’t. I’m not saying I’m some sort of noble cause. I’m not like that. That is not the point. What I’m saying is there’s no winners in this case.
“It is a true tragedy.”
