Chris Dawson murder trial: Police taped Dawson twins’ fury at podcast

Twins Chris and Paul Dawson ­repeatedly raised their belief they were being recorded by police during covertly intercepted phone calls.

Identical twins Chris, left, and Paul Dawson.

Twins Chris and Paul Dawson ­repeatedly raised their belief they were being recorded by police during covertly intercepted phone calls.

The twins’ fury at journalist Hedley Thomas is clear in the recordings from 2018, the year he launched The Teacher’s Pet podcast.

Police were secretly listening to the brothers’ conversations, but the men made it clear they were conscious they were unlikely to be talking in private.

One call was recorded on the night 60 Minutes aired a report on the 1982 disappearance of Chris’s wife Lynette.

“Hedley, you’re a f..king wanker,” says one of the brothers in the call recorded at 9.26pm on Sunday September 9, 2018, requesting the remark be passed on to the journalist by the police.

Thomas had described Chris Dawson in the program as being despicable, severely narcissistic and dangerous.

Mr Dawson was charged with Lyn’s murder three months later and is facing trial in the Supreme Court in Sydney.

Defence barrister Pauline David on Wednesday played to the court police-intercept phone calls recorded of the Dawson twins from 1999 to 2018. In many of the calls, they railed against the unfairness and exaggeration of sporadic media reports that ­appeared over Lyn’s disappearance.

They described some articles as “bullshit”, said former lead detective Damian Loone was “fat” and added they had nicknamed him “loony”.

According to the brothers, former Dawson family babysitter “JC” had a greater motive to kill Lyn than Chris Dawson, and had “walked away” from her marriage “with $100,000”.

The crown alleges Chris Dawson murdered Lyn to rid himself of his wife, to install his then teenage babysitter JC as her replacement, and to avoid the financial losses of a divorce.

In calls in 2018, the twins also discussed the emergence of The Teacher’s Pet podcast, saying Thomas had set himself up as “prosecutor, judge and jury”.

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

Speaking to a repairman in another intercepted call in September of that year, Chris Dawson said Lyn’s family had no concerns about any wrongdoing when she “left” and had “thought I was wonderful”.

Every allegation against him came later from his second wife JC when they were going through a divorce, he said.

Detective Senior Constable Daniel Poole, the current lead ­investigator, agreed with Ms David that he was concerned about Thomas’s communications with people involved in the case.

One concern was the possibility of unconscious bias contaminating witnesses through matters they had heard.

Prosecutor Craig Everson SC said the crown would contend Thomas had not contaminated the evidence of witnesses who in some cases had given statements to police years earlier or who had testified at an inquest.

He gave as an example Lyn’s colleague Annette Leary, interviewed for the podcast.

Ms Leary made a statement to police and gave evidence at the 2003 inquest about Chris Dawson’s alleged comment to Lyn that he was going to counselling only once and if it didn’t work he was getting rid of her.

Lyn’s neighbour Julie Andrew had given a statement on May 2, 1999 – almost 20 years before she was interviewed for The Teacher’s Pet.

Ms Andrew and Lyn’s ­brother Greg Simms were examples of people who had said what they had to say long before Thomas spoke to them, Mr Everson said.