DPP steps up as Chris Dawson insists Lyn phoned after disappearance

No proof that Lyn was dead: Chris Dawson tells the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal the judge caused a miscarriage of justice, as it’s revealed DPP Sally Dowling will fight the case herself.

Chris Dawson reports at Maroochydore police station in December 2018 after being charged with the murder of his wife Lyn Simms. He’s now appealing his conviction.

Christopher Michael Dawson claims Justice Ian Harrison caused a miscarriage of justice by failing to believe his story that his wife Lyn called him to say she “needed time away” from him and her two young daughters.

The appeal, commencing on Monday, will see taxpayers fund both sides of the case, with Dawson to be represented by public defender Belinda Rigg SC and the crown case to be put by NSW Director of Public Prosecutions Sally Dowling SC.

In a fresh appeal point lodged with the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal, Dawson claims Justice Harrison was wrong in 2022 to find Dawson guilty of murdering Lyn and sentenced him to 24 years in prison.

Dawson won’t be eligible for parole unless he reveals what he did with Lyn’s body, thanks to a new piece of legislation named ‘Lyn’s Law’ in honour of the devoted mother, who vanished in 1982.

Lyn’s family have asked that she be known by her maiden name, Lyn Simms.

Dawson claimed in police interviews after her disappearance, and through his lawyers at his murder trial, that on 9 January 1982, while he was working as a lifeguard at Northbridge Baths on Sydney’s north shore, he received a call from Lyn in which she indicated she was leaving him and their two little girls.

On that day, the court heard, Lyn Dawson had been expected to attend the pool – but did not show up.

In his police record of interview on 15 January 1991, Dawson said: “The girl who worked in the shop called me over and said there was an STD phone call for me, she had taken the call.

“I went there, took the, the phone call, it was Lyn.

“She said she needed time away like I had prior to, um, that day and she’d ring me in a few days’ time after she’d had time to sort things out.

“I had um, the following few weeks I had similar phone calls from Lyn, more STD calls saying that she needed extra time, that she needed more time to sort it out.

“Then after about the third phone call she said she needed a lot more time, she didn’t know if she would be returning to me.”

Proud mother Lyn and her baby daughter Shanelle Dawson.

A young woman who worked at the baths told the court during the murder trial that she recalled a woman calling the Baths to speak to either Chris Dawson or his brother Paul, but could not recall when that happened.

A friend of the family, Phillip Day, was at the pool that day and said in a police statement he recalled Chris was “summoned to the pool office to answer a telephone call. When he returned he advised (Lyn’s mother) Helena and me that the call was from Lyn, who as going away for a few days to ‘sort herself out’.”

Justice Ian Harrison said he didn’t believe Dawson – and that none of the witnesses had heard the call.

“The only evidence that Mr Dawson received a call from Lynette Dawson comes from Mr Dawson.”

“I am unable to accept that the version of events at the Northbridge Baths suggesting Mr Dawson received an STD call from Lynette Dawson on the afternoon of 9 January 1982 could reasonably be true. I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Mr Dawson’s various representations that he spoke to Lynette Dawson by telephone on a call made to the Northbridge Baths on that day is a lie.”

The judge said if Lyn wanted time away from her husband it was unlikely that she would keep calling him – and not call her beloved mother or anyone else.

“It is in my view fanciful to suggest that conversations as lacking in content and pregnant with cliche as those described by Mr Dawson ever occurred.”

Dawson’s appeal grounds also include an argument that Justice Harrison caused a miscarriage of justice by ‘finding as an indispensable intermediate fact that (Lyn) was dead by the afternoon of 9 January 1982.

At trial, Dawson’s then-barrister Pauline David – now a District Court judge – said it was possible Lyn had simply “abandoned the home” and chosen to stay away for reasons unknown.

Chris Dawson, driven by his twin brother Paul, leaves Sydney’s Silverwater prison after his arrest for the murder of his wife Lyn. Picture: Chris Pavlich.

Dawson’s appeal grounds also include a claim that Justice Harrison erred by taking Dawson’s alleged lies as ‘consciousness of guilt’.

Justice Harrison’s judgment said: “I am fortified in my ultimate conclusion in this trial by the lies that Mr Dawson told following Lynette Dawson’s disappearance. That conduct is only explicable as demonstrating a guilty conscience referable to the death of Lynette Dawson.”

After the day at the pool, Chris Dawson arranged for family friend Phillip Day to drive the two young daughters of Chris and Lyn to Clovelly, to spend the night with Lyn’s mother Helena.

He told Mr Day that this was Lyn’s request.

Justice Lee said Dawson’s decision to get the children out of the house that night – and the fact Lyn Dawson did not arrive at the pool as expected – helped him decide that she must have died before the pool visit.

Nobody had heard from Lyn since the previous evening, January 8, when she told her mother Chris had made her “a lovely drink”.

Helena Simms described Lyn sounding “half-sozzled” in the phone call.

Justice Harrison said this: “I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Mr Dawson arranged for Mr Day to take his daughters to Clovelly and that that request was made in contemplation of Mr Dawson’s plan to return home alone, having already killed his wife.

“The evidence does not reveal how Mr Dawson killed Lynette Dawson. It does not reveal whether he did so with the assistance of anyone else or by himself.

“It does not reveal where or when he did so. Nor does it reveal where Lynette Dawson’s body is now. The charge of murder in this trial is unsupported by direct evidence. The case against Mr Dawson is wholly circumstantial. It is therefore necessary that the Crown persuade me beyond reasonable doubt not only that Mr Dawson’s guilt is a rational inference, but that it is the only rational inference that the circumstances would enable me to draw. The circumstantial evidence in this case, considered as a whole, is persuasive and compelling.

“None of the circumstances considered alone can establish Mr Dawson’s guilt but when regard is had to their combined force I am left in no doubt.”

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Follow The Australian’s live coverage of the Chris Dawson appeal from Monday 13 May at theaustralian.com.au

Claire Harvey is host of The Australian’s daily news podcast The Front. Hear it wherever you get podcasts.