Driven to distraction before timeline causes headaches

Day five of Chris Dawson’s carnal knowledge trial was delayed by a bomb threat after a suspect bag was left inside Downing Centre.

Chris Dawson is on day five of his carnal knowledge trial.

Perhaps it was the bomb scare at the Sydney District Courts that destabilised the biorhythms of day five of Chris Dawson’s carnal knowledge trial.

The trial was set to resume at 10am when court sheriffs strode through the Downing Centre court complex and shepherded everyone out into the pale winter sunshine.

Police shut down part of Liverpool Street in the CBD for about an hour as court staff and barristers milled about at a safe distance, brushing shoulders with buskers and pedestrians and Lycra-clad gym junkies.

There is a no more definitive adjournment to justice than a suspect bag with a possible incendiary device inside it.

By the time the Dawson trial ­finally resumed at 11.27am, the court room, curiously empty of onlookers in the public gallery, and at the tail end of witness AB’s cross-examination, felt momentarily askew in several respects.

Judge Sarah Huggett accidentally referred to complainant AB by her former married name. Incorrect dates and times were thrown out and subsequently adjusted. Half-formed questions from the defence petered into nothing and were withdrawn.

The true and sure line of the trial momentarily wobbled.

Which may have meant nothing. Or something, given the evidence at issue was of critical importance. A grenade, if you like, at the heart of Dawson’s charge of carnal knowledge with one of his students.

Court Sketch of Chris Dawson at the Supreme Court.

As it had threatened all week, the monstrous spectre of the timeline of events suddenly loomed large in that small courtroom. Filled it to each corner like helium. And had everyone reaching for their mental calculators.

At issue was AB’s assertion that her teacher Chris Dawson had taught her how to drive in 1980. And during those driving lessons, teacher and pupil ended up parking at Dee Why beach one night and had their first kiss.

Then not long after that watershed moment, according to AB, they had sexual intercourse for the first time.

In evidence, AB had said she had been taught to drive by Dawson once she had secured her learner’s permit, which was she legally able to do aged 16 years and nine months. Given she reached that milestone in November 1980, that left a narrow corridor of about a month where she was still Dawson’s 16-year-old pupil.

As the official indictment read: “Christopher Michael Dawson. On a day between 1 July 1980 and 12 December 1980, at Maroubra in the State of NSW, did unlawfully and carnally know (AB) a girl above the age of 10 years and under the age of 17 years, namely 16 years and who was at that time a pupil of the said Christopher ­Michael Dawson.”

The court heard that there was no dispute that Dawson and AB had a sexual relationship. The critical issue, though, was when it began. Was it a few months earlier in 1980, as AB said in evidence? Or did the driving permit and lessons timeline contradict that with the November driver’s permit eligibility?

Suddenly, times and dates were slipping and sliding.

There was substantial discussion amongst Judge Huggett, Crown prosecutor Emma Blizard and defence barrister Claire Wasley about the definition of “driving lessons”. Could you be verbally instructed on how to change a gear, indicate or pull on the handbrake as a non-permit holder, prior to being able to legally get behind the wheel? Or only be given proper “driving lessons” as a permit holder?

This all begged the question – was the driving lesson, kiss and first sexual intercourse timetable reliable?

Further questioned by Blizard, AB conceded that “the kiss” may have occurred before any driving lessons occurred, which prompted barrister Wasley to question the strength of the complainant’s memory.

“I’m so sick of this, having to justify everything I say,” AB said, breaking down. “I want this to end.”

It was a late plea from the heart, and a late spanner in the works on a day of multiple spanners. And tears. And bombs.