Chris Dawson sex trial, a case of double vision

After two days of relative harmony and momentum, Chris Dawson’s carnal knowledge trial yesterday devolved into a peripatetic mishmash of stops and starts.

Chris Dawson and AB on their wedding day.

After two days of relative ­harmony and momentum, Chris Dawson’s carnal knowledge trial on Wednesday devolved into a peripatetic mishmash of stops and starts.

The doors to NSW District Court LG1 closed, then opened, then closed again, with the scant minutes of evidence actually heard punctuated by a witness’s tearful breakdown.

One of the seeds for this fracturing was sown late Tuesday, when Judge Sarah Huggett agreed with Dawson’s defence counsel, public defender Claire Wasley, that given Dawson’s possibly unstable cognitive state, he should be allowed to appear at the trial from his current home in Long Bay Correctional Complex in Sydney’s inner southeast, rather than endure the rigour of the daily commute to the Downing Centre court complex in Liverpool St in the CBD and back to the bay.

Finally, at 12.17pm, with the musical chairs sorted, the trial ­resumed proper.

Up on the court’s multiple television screens – two large ones mounted high on the wood-panelled walls, and three available along the front row of the jury box – Dawson appeared, his face close to the camera, in a room with walls and a door washed with sickly blue and green paint.

As Dawson leant forward, it was only possible to see the top half of his skull. Again, there were the infrequently blinking eyes. The vacant stare. At times he carried the expression of someone looking at or hearing something he simply could not comprehend. His confused expression perfectly reflected the passage of the day.

Then chief witness AB appeared once again, also via audio-visual link, bright and smiling in a navy blue smock.

For the first time, both the complainant and the accused simultaneously shared the same screen. AB dominated the televisual space. As for Dawson, he was relegated to a small square tile of video in the bottom left-hand corner, below AB’s right shoulder, his screen real estate a tenth of hers.

The tagline under her live feed read SYDNEY.

The tagline under his live feed read LONG BAY.

A glance at the double image said this – the complainant had rendered the accused a pixelated afterthought.

And if you were the type ­inclined to seek out symbolism or metaphors in the grand tapestry of this thing we call life, then one was readily available and in plain view in court LG1.

During her subsequent evidence, AB told the court about a sports coaching exam she took at the end of year 11 at Cromer High, where Dawson was her physical education teacher.

AB recalled that in a written essay – knowing it would be marked by Dawson – she decided to include “something exotic” given they had been lovers “for some time”. The words were for Dawson alone, ”as the sexual partner that he was”.

Far from being thrilled, Dawson allegedly ripped out the ­offending material and gave her a zero mark for her efforts.

Crown prosecutor Emma Blizard then took AB beyond her school years to 1984, when she married Dawson, and to 1985, when she had a daughter with him.

And in a rare and unexpected show of emotion, AB quickly broke down into sobs and tears.

“Do you need a break?” asked Blizard. And the screen, once again, went blank.

At 12.58pm, AB’s evidence in chief was over for the day.

Later in the afternoon, the trial travelled back once again to the Cromer High schoolyard in 1980, where MC, one of AB’s fellow students and a lifelong friend, was asked about the inordinate amount of time she had observed her friend spent in PE teacher Dawson’s office during recess and lunch breaks at school.

AB’s friends would bang on the office door, imploring her to come out. Once, MC told the court, they saw AB sitting on Dawson’s lap.

A glance at the double image said this – the complainant had rendered the accused a pixelated afterthought.

And if you were the type ­inclined to seek out symbolism or metaphors in the grand tapestry of this thing we call life, then one was readily available and in plain view in court LG1.

During her subsequent evidence, AB told the court about a sports coaching exam she took at the end of year 11 at Cromer High, where Dawson was her physical education teacher.

AB recalled that in a written essay – knowing it would be marked by Dawson – she decided to include “something exotic” given they had been lovers “for some time”. The words were for Dawson alone, ”as the sexual partner that he was”.

Far from being thrilled, Dawson allegedly ripped out the ­offending material and gave her a zero mark for her efforts.

Crown prosecutor Emma Blizard then took AB beyond her school years to 1984, when she married Dawson, and to 1985, when she had a daughter with him.

And in a rare and unexpected show of emotion, AB quickly broke down into sobs and tears.

“Do you need a break?” asked Blizard. And the screen, once again, went blank.

At 12.58pm, AB’s evidence in chief was over for the day.

Later in the afternoon, the trial travelled back once again to the Cromer High schoolyard in 1980, where MC, one of AB’s fellow students and a lifelong friend, was asked about the inordinate amount of time she had observed her friend spent in PE teacher Dawson’s office during recess and lunch breaks at school.

AB’s friends would bang on the office door, imploring her to come out. Once, MC told the court, they saw AB sitting on Dawson’s lap.

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