Everything to know about the Chris Dawson carnal knowledge trial
The convicted murderer faces court for alleged sexual intercourse with a 16-year-old former student in the 1980s | Here’s everything you need to know as the trial gets underway.
Convicted murderer Christopher Dawson is facing trial before the NSW District Court, charged with unlawful sex with a 16-year-old schoolgirl in 1980, when he was her sports teacher. For legal reasons, the alleged victim cannot be named.
Dawson, 74, will plead not guilty to the charge of carnal knowledge of a girl aged between 10 and 17 years.
He is sitting in court wearing prison greens, looking physically healthy and strong.
The trial will be heard before Judge Sarah Huggett, who before she came to the bench was a prosecutor. Judge Huggett, as a young lawyer, served as the sole instructing solicitor in the Crown’s case against notorious backpacker killer Ivan Milat.
Dawson is represented by Public Defender Claire Wasley, while the Crown prosecutor is Emma Blizard.
Dawson was convicted in 2022 of the murder of his wife Lyn in 1982, and has indicated he will appeal that conviction.
He is serving 24 years for the murder.
This is an entirely separate proceeding.
New Chris Dawson trial podcast, The Teacher’s Accuser
The Australian is launching today a new podcast, The Teacher’s Accuser. You can hear it wherever you get your podcasts. Just search ‘The Teacher’s Accuser’. It will be published in the same feed as our earlier murder-trial podcast, The Teacher’s Trial.
We will also be publishing daily trial updates in our news podcast The Front, also available wherever you get your podcasts.
Who is Chris Dawson?
Chris Dawson is a 74-year-old convicted murderer, former high school teacher from Sydney’s northern beaches and a former rugby league player for the Newtown Jets.
Dawson has three children and has had three wives. He was found to have murdered his first wife, Lynette, in a 2022 criminal trial.
How Chris Dawson was found guilty of killing Lynette Dawson
Four years after The Australian’s investigative podcast series The Teacher’s Pet detailed the highly suspicious circumstances around Lyn’s decades-old unsolved appearance, Chris Dawson was found guilty of murder.
Chris Dawson murdered his wife Lynette in 1982, disposed of her body and then lied for decades to conceal the crime, NSW Supreme Court judge Ian Harrison SC declared in a total vindication of her family’s decades-long fight for justice in August 2022. Lynette’s family wish for her to be known by her maiden name Lynette Joy Simms.
The judge concluded Lynette did not leave her home voluntarily, especially given she was a devoted and loving mother who would not abandon her children.
Lynette could not drive, took no clothes or significant funds with her, was never registered to vote and never accessed her bank accounts or government services. For these reasons, the judge found she would have had no way of supporting herself.
“Lynette Dawson is dead. She died on or about 8 January 1982 and she did not voluntarily abandon her home,” Justice Harrison said.
The judge identified three key motives Chris Dawson had for killing Lynette.
Explore a complete timeline of Chris Dawson’s crime and sentencing here.
Chris Dawson’s murder sentence
Chris Dawson is serving a maximum 24 years in prison, with a non-parole period of 18 years. At the age of 74, it is expected he will die behind bars.
If still alive when he is eligible for parole at 92, he will then face “no body, no parole” laws, introduced in NSW as a result of his conviction, blocking his freedom unless he assists in recovering Lyn’s remains.
Why is Chris Dawson back in court?
Dawson is set to stand trial for a single charge of carnal knowledge by a teacher of a girl between the ages of 10 and 17.
He has pleaded not guilty and will stand trial in a judge-only trial.
This matter is separate from the three-month Supreme Court trial at which Dawson was convicted of killing his wife Lynette so he could continue his relationship with a former babysitter identified by the court only as JC.
This trial will not be heard in front of a jury. The murder trial was also heard in front of a judge only, with his defence counsel arguing the pre-trial publicity meant a jury was unsuitable for the matter.
What is carnal knowledge?
Carnal knowledge is an old charge that back in 1980 was part of the Crimes Act – Section 73. While the age of legal consent was 16, there was a different rule for teachers and students, as well as other relationships with a power imbalance. The crime carried a maximum sentence of 14 years and covered fathers, stepfathers and teachers who had sex with a child aged between 10 and 17.
Today the same offence exists, but it’s called ‘sexual intercourse with a young person under special care’.
Carnal is from the Latin word cannolis, as in fleshy of the flesh.
What is the carnal knowledge trial about?
The court heard the carnal knowledge case will hinge on when Dawson first had sex with the student. The crown must prove Dawson was still the girl’s teacher at the time. She was allegedly sixteen at the time, when he was in his thirties.
We can’t identify the woman in this trial, but there is no dispute that she and Dawson entered a sexual relationship at some point. Dawson has been charged because she alleges they first had sex when she was 16 and he was her teacher. Dawson’s defence will be that they didn’t have sex until after her 17th birthday.
As Chris Dawson is alleged to have committed the offence in the 1980s, he will face the charge of that time, carnal knowledge, but the sentencing will be in line with modern standards.
NSW law says offenders must be punished for child sexual offences in accordance with the sentencing practices and patterns of today, rather than being given a sentence deemed appropriate back in the ‘80s.
Chris Dawson is pleading not guilty. If he were convicted, he would face sentencing to the standards of 2023, not the early 1980s.
Paul Dawson’s tale of sex with a schoolgirl kept out of murder trial
The Supreme Court judge who decided Chris Dawson’s fate in the murder trial was not told a disturbing story involving Chris Dawson’s twin and a schoolgirl, “Alice”. Paul Dawson has denied wrongdoing, previously telling police his relationship with Alice started just after she left school.
In 1998, Alice told police that in early 1981 when she was almost 16, she had sex with Paul Dawson, one of the teachers whom she knew at Forest High.
In July 1982, when Alice was 17 but still at school, he allegedly began arranging for her to have sex with other men. It’s alleged Alice once went to Paul Dawson’s home when his wife, Marilyn, and the couple’s young children weren’t home.
Alice was allegedly told to dress in seductive clothing and to perform oral sex on a carpet cleaner who would be arriving.
The girl made a statement to police about the alleged events, but it was the subject of a non-publication order by a coroner in 2003.
Several of the girls from that school area, now women in their 50s, have suffered mental health problems or breakdowns attributed to their relationships with teachers.
Dawson’s murder trial courtroom was told underage students commonly congregated with teachers at the local Time and Tide Hotel.
Who is Peter Dawson?
The only sibling in court supporting Chris Dawson as he learnt his fate at the murder trial was his older brother Peter Dawson.
Standing outside on the steps of the NSW Supreme Court following the sentencing of his brother, who is likely to die behind bars, Peter Dawson watched on through dark wraparound sunglasses as Chris’s lawyer, Greg Walsh, spoke to the media.
Who is Chris Dawson’s wife?
Chris Dawson married his first wife, Lynette Joy Simms, the woman he murdered, in 1970.
In 1984, two years after Lynette went missing, Dawson married his former babysitter, known to the court during the murder trial as JC. Dawson had Lynette’s rings reset to create a new engagement ring for his second wife. Their divorce proceedings began in 1990 and were finalised in 1991.
Chris Dawson claims he has broken up with his third wife Susan Dawson, blaming the breakdown on the stress caused by the media’s revelations that he killed his first wife, Lynette Joy Simms.
Dawson claimed in legal proceedings before his conviction he and Susan had split, but around the same time he and Susan were photographed together.
Property records show a Gold Coast investment property owned by Christopher Michael Dawson and Susan Constance Dawson sold on November 15.
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The National Sexual Assault Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service can be reached on 1800RESPECT.