Christopher Dawson case: Crime and punishment and the calculus of suitable convictions

Chris Dawson will be 92 when he is eligible for parole for the murder of Lyn Simms. Picture: AAP

As a high school physical education teacher, the only occasions Christopher Michael Dawson may have been required to call upon any mathematical nous might have been in measuring the girth of biceps or unspooling the tape measure at the long jump pit.

His carnal knowledge sentencing hearing on Friday, however, was wall-to-wall arithmetic.

The equations that fired around court G1 of the Downing Centre Local and District Court in the Sydney CBD, before judge Sarah Huggett, were quite literally about matters of life and death. To be precise, his.

That sustained thicket of calculus was triggered by legal discussion over how many years Dawson might expect to spend in prison as a result of this latest conviction of carnal knowledge with one of his 16-year-old pupils back in the early 1980s.

Given he is already serving a 24-year sentence for the 1982 murder of his first wife, Lyn, the carnal knowledge conviction posed a new set of equations.

Should this latest custodial sentence begin at the earliest date of Dawson’s opportunity for ­parole as per his murder sentence, that being August 30, 2040?

Should the new term of incarceration be served concurrently with the murder sentence?

Should Dawson’s punishment be measured by the sentencing calculus as it stood when the ­offence was committed, namely a maximum of 14 years? Or should he be measured by today’s figure: a maximum of eight years?

Dawson will be 92 when he’s eligible for parole on the murder charge. How many more years should be tacked on to that? What would be fair in the eyes of the law? Would he survive to 92 and the possibility of parole, or would another few years added completely dissolve even the remotest notions he might have of one day returning to society?

Or was this whole paradigm just a case of six of one, half a dozen of the other? At his advanced age, would another couple of years behind bars really matter?

Dawson, appearing via audio visual link from his home at Long Bay Jail in Sydney’s southeast, occasionally looked a little nonplussed. It may have been the maths. Or that he was sick of featuring in court proceedings.

As Judge Huggett read her sentencing statement, Dawson, his elbows resting on a table out of screen, clasped his hands – a fist, a steeple – in front of his face, hiding, it seemed, from the tawdry details of his grooming his pupil leading up to the moment of carnal knowledge all those years ago.

Here was a man who for much of his life had been the focal point of praise, admiration and fawning attention. Now, in the face of admonition, he peered around the screen of those large hands, barely able to look in the direction of his critics.

Chris Dawson appeared to be resigned to his fate when sentenced on Friday. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Damian Shaw

This time, there was something different about Dawson. He had, months ago, expressed anger and defiance when found guilty of the carnal knowledge charge. A year earlier, he had been blindsided by his murder conviction.

On Friday, he appeared resigned to his fate. He never shook his head once. He didn’t register anger or frustration. He just sat, an old man with heavy shoulders, accepting, it appeared, that he had thrown his life away.

In the end, Judge Huggett, the only mathematician in the room who mattered, arrived at a solution to the numbers problem.

“Christopher Dawson,” she said in her clipped voice, “for the offence of carnal knowledge of a girl above the age of 10 years and under the age of 17 years, and who was your pupil, I sentence you to imprisonment for three years, commencing on 30th August, 2039, and expiring on 29th August, 2042, with a non-parole ­period of two years expiring on 29th August, 2041, on which date you are eligible for parole.”

Dawson remained stone-faced. Was he doing his sums? Did he care?

“So that then I think, Mr Dawson, completes your matter before this court,” Judge Huggett said. “So do you understand your non-parole period has been increased by one year? That is the effect of the sentence that has been imposed upon you.”

“Thank you.”

“Yes, OK,” said the judge.

“Thanks very much, then,” said Dawson.

One year. For the singular offence that triggered this epic four-decade saga that resulted in death, trauma, grief, sorrow, that tore families apart, and that continues to reverberate today.

One year.

Some might say that doesn’t add up.