Chris Dawson trial: Lyn Dawson upbeat … then she vanished

Lyn Dawson was upbeat and looking to the future in her handwritten application for a childcare position in the months before her alleged murder | LISTEN

Lyn Dawson.

Lyn Dawson was upbeat and looking to the future in her handwritten application for a childcare position in the months before her alleged murder.

Employment files tendered in her husband Chris Dawson’s ­Supreme Court trial this week trace her successful job application. The files also include a note formally terminating her employment after she went missing from Sydney’s northern beaches in January 1982.

Lyn’s dedication to her two young daughters and husband is apparent in the forms she completed when applying in March 1981 for a part-time nursing ­position at the Warriewood childcare centre.

The job entailed looking after children as young as six months old when their parents – typically mothers – needed respite or to run errands.

She had been working at the centre as a casual and wrote that she had “thoroughly enjoyed my contact with the children”.

Her previous work involved ­liaising between the medical profession and general public.

“A factor I thoroughly ­enjoyed!” she wrote.

Her reply under the hobbies section of the application form appeared an honest reflection of her life at that point.

“The setting up of a new home and arrival of two children plus a husband studying by correspondence to complete a university degree have temporarily halted most of my hobbies and sports,” she wrote.

“But I did enjoy: tennis, swimming, gardening, reading (espec. books related to child development etc) handicrafts, knitting, crochet, current affairs programs on television & in magazines.”

Lyn Dawson’s job application.

Lyn Dawson’s job application.

Lyn Dawson’s job application.

Lyn Dawson’s job application.

Her interviewer’s notes stated she “prefers to work in school holidays as her husband is a teacher”.

In June, 1981, two months after going for the job, a council clerk wrote he was “pleased to confirm your successful application”. Lyn replied: “I hereby formally accept the position. Thank you for ­accepting my application & for your good wishes.”

The centre was run by the Warringah Shire Council.

On February 23, 1982, the same clerk who had offered her the position prepared a typed ­letter ending her employment.

“Dear Mrs Dawson, Our records reveal that you have not reported for work since Monday 11th January, 1982,” the clerk wrote.

“Since we have received no ­advice, no medical certificate, from you indicating your inability to work, it is considered that you have abandoned your employment with this Council.

“Accordingly, your employment is deemed to have been terminated, effective from Monday, 11th January, 1982.”

Lyn was allegedly murdered by her husband on or about the night of Friday, January 8, 1982, so he could have an unfettered ­relationship with his teenage babysitter.

Mr Dawson, 73, has pleaded not guilty.

Lyn’s school friend, Diana ­Alcorn, has been attending the trial. She had lost touch with Lyn before her disappearance.

“I can’t remember any times where we weren’t particularly happy, except when sometimes we got our exam results,” she said.

Watching witnesses give evidence has been tough, she tells a new episode of The Teacher’s Trial podcast.

This week she listened to women from the Warriewood childcare centre give evidence about what they had seen, and what Lyn told them. “I became a little bit emotional,” she said. “I teared up a little bit. But then I thought, look, we’ve just got to get this over and done with.”