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Chris Dawson’s words ‘a pleasure to teach’ point to his guilt, Crown says

Wife-killer Chris Dawson will learn within weeks whether he has been found guilty of unlawful carnal knowledge of a schoolgirl he went on to marry.

Chris Dawson, watching from Long Bay jail, has repeatedly shaken his head and put his forehead on his clasped hands during the defence closing in his carnal knowledge trial. Sketch: Vincent de Gouw / NCA NewsWire
Chris Dawson, watching from Long Bay jail, has repeatedly shaken his head and put his forehead on his clasped hands during the defence closing in his carnal knowledge trial. Sketch: Vincent de Gouw / NCA NewsWire

Wife-killer Chris Dawson will find out in just over two weeks’ time whether he has been found guilty of unlawful carnal knowledge of a schoolgirl he went on to marry.

NSW District Court judge Sarah Huggett said at the completion of closing submissions from the prosecution and defence on Tuesday that she would return with a verdict and publish her reasons on Wednesday, June 28.

It comes after crown prosecutor Emma Blizard told the former teacher’s trial that Dawson wrote ‘a pleasure to teach’ on a 16-year-old schoolgirl’s report in 1980 because they were having unlawful sex.

On a video-link from Long Bay jail, Dawson repeatedly shook his head and put his forehead on his clasped hands as Ms Blizard reeled off pieces of “powerful evidence” that Dawson had sex with the girl in 1980, and not 1981, as he claims.

Dawson is serving a 24-year sentence for the murder of his wife Lynette, whom he killed in 1982 in order to have an unfettered relationship with the student, who later became his second wife.

She told the carnal knowledge trial Dawson groomed and abused her.

The trial turns on the timing of their first sexual contact. The pupil, who for legal reasons can only be known as AB, says they first had sex when she was 16 and in Dawson’s class at Cromer High.

Dawson says they first had sex when she had finished Year 11 and was no longer his pupil.

Ms Blizard quoted two eyewitnesses describing seeing the complainant, AB, and Dawson in the school office – once with her sitting in his lap, and again with her on the desk and him standing between her legs.

Ms Blizard also quoted a schoolgirl witness saying AB told her in 1980: ‘He wants to marry me, he’s going to look after me.’

Closing arguments began at 10am on Tuesday in the Downing Centre District Court, with public defender Claire Wasley accusing AB of making up and exaggerating some of her evidence.

Ms Blizard was the first to deliver her closing address, after Dawson declined to give evidence or call witnesses in his own defence.

She said a ‘trolley boy’ – a Coles worker who was 16 years old and keen on AB – had described being confronted in 1980 by Dawson.

“He was pushing my chest – not really aggressively, more in just a sort of a threatening way I guess you could say – and then backed me up against the wall then he said words to the effect of `stay away from her, don’t go near her’, and I said, I was completely perplexed about what was going on – and probably pretty scared. I said: ‘Who?’ and he said ‘AB’.

Dawson, as teacher of a class called sports coaching, wrote: ‘A pleasure to teach’ on AB’s November 1980 school report.

AB earlier told the court during her evidence these words had a double meaning and Dawson thought it was “very clever to be able to put that on a public document, he thought it was very cunning.”

Ms Blizard said: “Her evidence these words had a double meaning has a ring of truth when you consider that a teacher who would, the following month, give a 16-year-old girl a card that said ‘Love always, God’, might also think it was clever and cunning to write words with a double meaning on her school report where only they would know what those words really meant.”

In 1980, Dawson wrote on a Christmas card to AB: ‘Once or twice every minute, love always, God.’

Ms Blizard told the judge: “The crown submits that … is a clear window into the state of things between them in 1980 and is consistent – both addressing it to Petal and ‘once or twice every minute’, which Your Honour might think is a reference to how often the accused thought of the complainant – are consistent with sexual interaction going on for some time, and are not consistent with what was put to the complainant (by the defence) that things became romantic between them over the school holidays.”

In February 1981, when AB turned 17, Dawson gave her a card reading: ‘To the most beautiful girl in the world on her 17th birthday, knowing we will share all the birthdays to follow, all my love.’

Ms Blizard set out a timeline which began with Dawson finding a topless photo of AB which had been circulating in the school playground in 1979, when she was in Year 10, and returning it to her.

“It is the Crown case that the accused, having decided he would be the complainant’s teacher for the following year, took steps to make that happen and told the complainant he had done that because he thought she was beautiful and he wanted to get to know her.”

Next came a sports carnival, where the Crown says Dawson touched the girl’s bare knee.

He then asked her to become the family babysitter, Ms Blizard said, and arranged a tennis match so she could meet Lynette and be “cleared to babysit”.

Ms Blizard said the babysitting had begun by July 1980 as AB recalled attending a joint birthday party for Chris and Lynette’s two daughters, both born in July.

The crown says the pair had their first kiss when they were alone in his car, either on a driving lesson, or when he was driving her somewhere. AB told the court this occurred just days before their first sexual activity.

AB’s evidence has varied as to whether this happened during a driving lesson or not.

The crown case is that it doesn’t matter whether it was before or after she obtained her learner’s permit around November 1980 or not, because the significance is that the pair were alone in the car.

It’s not disputed that the pair first had sex at Dawson’s parents’ home in Chester St, Maroubra.

The Crown case is that it was before school broke up on December 12, 1980 – something Dawson denies.

Prosecutor Emma Blizard told Judge Sarah Huggett: “Your Honour might think that watching AB’s evidence that when describing it she appeared to be reliving it. She talked about how she didn’t want the lights on because she was afraid; that the accused took off her clothes and she was lying on the bed in anticipation and she was shaking.

“She talked about the accused making sure she was comfortable, afterwards telling her it was a good start and she’d done well. She said she’d thanked him and she was grateful,” Ms Blizard said.

Ms Blizard said intercourse then occurred weekly on Friday nights in Dawson’s car, parked at Little Manly.

“AB said they would park there and … at a certain point he would motion to the back, he would take out the baby seat and they would have intercourse in his car.

“The detail of this occurring on Friday nights is important and the crown submits it is important because of the evidence of (another schoolgirl witness) that AB started disappearing from their social group on Friday nights during the year 11 school year.”

The next significant event was the school report in November 1980, when Dawson wrote AB was “A pleasure to teach”.

AB told the court this was a reference to their sexual activity: “He thought it was very clever to be able to put that on a public document, he thought it was very cunning.”

After the Christmas card, the Crown says the next significant moment was in February 1981 when Dawson wrote AB a birthday card reading: “To the most beautiful girl in the world on her 17th birthday, knowing we will share all the birthdays to follow, all my love.”

Emma Blizard said: “In February of 1981 the accused was married to Lynette Dawson with two young children. If his words are considered against the realities of his home situation at that time, it looks like a person contemplating ending their marriage to start anew with AB.

“The accused’s words on that card are inconsistent with a relationship or a sexual interaction which has started over the Christmas break.”

HEDLEY THOMAS ON CHRIS DAWSON

Describing AB’s testimony, Ms Blizard said: “The crown submits that she gave powerful, honest and reliable evidence about the events at Maroubra and the surrounding events of her interactions with the accused.

“But of course the crown case on this central question of timing does not rest on AB alone.

“The crown submits that AB is powerfully supported on the existence of a physical relationship between herself and the accused during the latter half of the 1980 school year by what was seen by others, heard by others … and in the accused’s own words.”

Ms Blizard said it was significant that the schoolgirl witness who said she saw AB on Dawson’s lap also said AB had told her during 1980 that Dawson was proposing marriage.

Ms Blizard said it was also significant that Dawson had “intimidated” a young trolley-boy at Coles Dee Why, whom he considered a romantic rival for AB’s affections.

The trolley boy told the court that must have happened before he got his driving licence in September 1980.

“The crown submits that when Your Honour considers as a whole the evidence of AB, Your Honour will find the accused guilty of the charge,” Ms Blizard said.

Dawson’s barrister, Ms Wasley, said she suspected there would be sympathy for complainant AB, who had become “frustrated and upset” at times.

AB clearly had some difficulty reflecting on her involvement with Dawson including having a child with and marrying him, Ms Wasley said.

Having reflected on that time, AB’s view was that “she was groomed by the accused”.

However the judge might conclude one of the reasons AB became upset and frustrated was that she was “having trouble reconciling” her evidence at the trial with previous accounts she had given about the time frame of events.

“It is Mr Dawson‘s case that while he was involved in a sexual relationship with the complainant that commenced while he was married and while she was a school student, it did not commence while she was in his sports coaching class in 1980,” Ms Wasley said.

“It is not submitted that it was an appropriate one, just that it did not commence whilst she was in his class.”

Dawson was presumed not guilty unless it was proved otherwise by the Crown.

“It is a heavy onus and it rests with the Crown from the beginning of the trial until the end or the trial. Mr Dawson does not have to prove his innocence. Mr Dawson does not have to prove a thing.”

Much of Ms Wasley’s closing submissions have focused on AB’s evidence about when Dawson first kissed her.

AB had lied in the witness box about whether Dawson first kissed her during a driving lesson, because she had realised she could not have obtained the permit until early November 1980, Ms Wasley said.

This contradicted multiple earlier statements in which AB said the first kiss happened during a driving lesson, Ms Wasley said.

AB’s evidence about where she was living at the time of the driving lessons also couldn’t be trusted, Ms Wasley said.

AB previously gave evidence that the driving lessons occurred while she was living at Collaroy Plateau, after the family moved out of a Dee Why flat.

However there was evidence the family did not move to Collaroy Plateau until the beginning of 1981, Ms Wasley said.

While former Cromer High students gave evidence about seeing AB and Dawson together on school grounds, this was consistent with a `counselling’ type relationship rather than a sexual one, Ms Wasley said.

AB had previously given evidence at an inquest into Lyn Dawson’s disappearance that this was how she viewed interactions at the time, she said.

Complainant AB also had credibility issues because some events she had described at the trial – including Dawson obtaining a topless photo of her in Year 9 – had not been in any of her previous statements of evidence.

Meanwhile, cards Dawson sent to AB were evidence only of a developing romantic relationship “and can’t be relied on to establish the time frame within which” sex first occurred.

Ms Wasley said the judge should take into account that Dawson was at a significant forensic disadvantage because of the length of time it had taken to launch a prosecution.

Police could not obtain exam dates, attendance records and other key information. The judge could not even be satisfied exactly when in 1980 that Dawson ceased being AB’s sports teacher, because specific records were not available.

This disadvantage extended to some witnesses listening to The Australian’s podcast The Teacher’s Pet before they provided statements to NSW Police Strike Force Southwood about events at the centre of a trial.

“Had these matters been investigated earlier, the witnesses wouldn’t have heard in some detail the allegations against the accused that are the very subject of this trial, including the specific time frame issues,” Ms Wasley said.

The delay of more than 40 years had also affected the capacity of witnesses to remember details and dates, she said.

Ms Blizard said it was only “speculation” that Dawson had been disadvantaged by the passage of time.

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/chris-dawsons-words-a-pleasure-to-teach-point-to-his-guilt-crown-says/news-story/3acc4dbdacc90d2d5a4dbaadeaaeaae3