Chris Dawson sex abuse trial verdict will be televised

Wife-killer Chris Dawson will find out on Wednesday whether he has been found guilty of unlawful carnal knowledge of a schoolgirl he went on to marry.

Chris Dawson and complainant AB on their wedding day.

Wife-killer Chris Dawson will find out on Wednesday whether he has been found guilty of a ­second criminal charge, the ­unlawful carnal knowledge of a schoolgirl he went on to marry.

District Court judge Sarah Huggett will also give reasons for her verdict, and has granted media permission to film the ­proceedings.

Dawson, a former teacher and professional footballer with the Newtown Jets rugby league team, was last year found guilty of the murder of his first wife, Lyn, and sentenced to 24 years.

Chris Dawson is already serving a 24-year prison sentence for the murder of his first wife, Lyn. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Vincent de Gouw

He has said he intends to ­appeal the murder conviction, and denies the allegation at his separate carnal knowledge trial that he had sex with one of his students when she was 16 years old and in his class.

Public defender Claire Wasley said during the trial that Dawson contended he did not have sex with the student, who can only be known as AB, until after she turned 17, when it was no longer an offence under laws of the time.

NSW Police Strike Force Southwood was set up to investigate allegations on The Australian’s podcast The Teacher’s Pet of inappropriate teacher-student relationships on Sydney’s northern beaches in the 1970s and 80s.

AB then approached the strike force about Dawson, saying he groomed and then had sex with her in 1980 when she was underage and in his sports class at Cromer High.

Detectives charged him with carnal knowledge in June 2019 after he had already been charged with murdering Lyn, who disappeared in 1982.

The prosecution alleged at the murder trial that Dawson killed his wife to be with AB. They had gone on to marry in 1984 and had a child together. Dawson was retired and living on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast when the podcast that upturned his life was launched just over five years ago.

Now 74, he has suggested in both the murder and carnal knowledge trials that witnesses may have been influenced by the podcast and associated publicity.

Chris Dawson and his first wife, Lynette Simms. Photo: Supplied.

Interactions between Dawson’s twin brother, Paul Dawson, and schoolgirls have also been raised during the trial.

Paul Dawson has not been charged with any offence. But one witness, a former schoolgirl babysitter for Paul Dawson’s family who can only be identified as CD, said the twins groomed and manipulated herself and AB. Another former sports ­teacher from the northern ­beaches, Lee Dunbar, was charged by Strike Force Southwood with indecently assaulting a student in a separate case and pleaded guilty.

Dunbar was sentenced last September to an 18-month intensive corrections order to be served in the community. The sentencing judge on the Dunbar charge was Chris Dawson’s ­former barrister, Pauline David, in one of her first cases after being elevated to the District Court bench.

AB’s evidence was supported by statements from former students at her school who spoke of witnessing close inter­actions between the pair in 1980, when she was in Year 11. She became emotional during her evidence, including when Ms Wasley suggested she was making things up. “No. This happened to me,” AB said. “I’m so sick of this. Having to justify everything I say. And I know it’s just your job, but this is my life and this happened to me. And I want something done about it. I want you to ­believe what I’m saying.”