Colour of character enlivens Chris Dawson trial

The criminal history of one Robert Silkman preoccupied the murder trial of former school teacher Chris Dawson in the Supreme Court in Sydney on Thursday.

Chris Dawson allegedly asked Robert Silkman whether he could help him get rid of his wife, Lyn. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Christian Gilles

The criminal history of one Robert Silkman, aka Robert Silkmen, aka Robert Charles Wood, aka John Kenneth Goodman, preoccupied the murder trial of former school teacher Chris Dawson in the Supreme Court in Sydney on Thursday.

Mr Silkman – with shaved head and black coat - this week lit up the trial via audio-visual link, taking Court 9D back to seedy Sydney in the mid-1970s, and testifying that after a Newtown Jets end-of-year rugby league football trip to the Gold Coast, Mr Dawson had allegedly asked him whether he could help him get rid of his wife, Lyn.

Before his criminal past was dissected, Mr Silkman talked of the trip to Surfers Paradise and staying at the then popular Tiki Village resort in Cavill Avenue, the boisterous drinking in beer gardens (not for the teetotalling Dawson twins, who “hung out” with the coaches), pranks and shenanigans at the famous beach.

With that critical evidence done, defence barrister Pauline David, for Mr Dawson, tendered Mr Silkman’s criminal history, and explored numerous aliases and name changes.

While the record did not exact­ly highlight crimes that might attract the admiration of the underworld – the theft of 5000 bricks in 1973, for example – the court heard Mr Silkman was charged and convicted 20 years later with maliciously destroying property by way of fire or explosives and sentenced to a minimum of one year in prison.

It hardly put Mr Silkman in the league of his former friend at the Newtown Jets, convicted drug dealer Paul Hayward, nor Hayward’s brother-in-law, the killer Neddy Smith.

Still, in her indefatigable quest to illuminate Mr Silkman’s ­chequered past and by proxy his character, Ms David intimated that there may have been an ­insurance fraud behind the fire, which Mr Silkman denied.

Robert Silkman enters a police station interview room to testify at the trial of Chris Dawson. Picture NCA NewsWire / David Swift

Lengthy legal debate ensued about probing this moment in the witness’s life, but as judge Ian Harrison pointed out, sometimes the simplest questions can ­produce the most revealing ­answers.

Ms David then asked Mr Silkman directly why he had torched the building in question.

Mr Silkman cut through the legal palaver like a hot knife through butter, answering with streetwise brevity: “Simple fact. He (the owner of the building) owed me money.”

Having been issued an assurance his evidence if truthful could not incriminate him, Mr Silkman told the court he had in essence turned over a new leaf since going to jail in the early 1990s.

Ms David: Are you suggesting you’ve learned your lesson, Mr Silkman?

Mr Silkman: I like to think I have.

Ms David: You want this court to accept you’re an honest ­person?

Mr Silkman: That’s what I think I am.

Ms David was far from done. She took Mr Silkman to another matter, this time a $250,000 mortgage he helped secure for a friend in 2001. It was alleged that $170,000 of that sum ended up in Mr Silkman’s personal bank account. Had he defrauded his vulnerable friend?

No, said Mr Silkman, she got her money. There was no fraud.

Then there was the curious case, outlined to the court, when Mr Silkman, an inmate of Cessnock jail and earning $12 a week, was able to secure two mortgages with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia after slinging two bribes to a crooked bank manager.

Mr Silkman then offered a philosophical question that momentarily stunned the court with its mind-numbing complexity. Being a bank manager, Mr Silkman opined, didn’t he have a duty of care towards his clients?

In effect, what sort of respon­sible bank official would get a prison inmate earning about $624 per annum to sign on for mortgages in excess of $200,000?

And around it went.

Mr Silkman agreed he had “lied quite often”, but that was the past.

The hammering continued.

Ms David: I suggest he (Mr Dawson) was never on plane with you in 1975.

Mr Silkman: Incorrect.

Ms David: I suggest at no stage did Chris Dawson ever approach you in the way you suggest.

Mr Silkman: Incorrect.

Ms David: (He) never asked you whether you knew how to get rid of his wife.

Mr Silkman: Incorrect.

And with that – about 2.30pm - Mr Silkman-Silkmen-Wood-Goodman was excused.