Former schoolgirl saw Lynette nursing black eye, Dawson murder trial told

Missing mother Lynette Dawson was seen with a black eye in a car at her husband Chris’s school, his murder trial has been told.

Lynnette Dawson in 1980. Picture: Justin Lloyd

Missing mother Lynette Dawson was seen with a black eye in a car at her husband Chris’s school, his murder trial has been told.

A woman identified as “KF”, due to her age at the time, was in Year 10 at Cromer High School on Sydney’s northern beaches in 1980. She said most people knew Mr Dawson, the physical education teacher, was married, and she would see his wife Lyn there at times with the couple’s children.

Once, the former student walked out of school and saw Lyn seated on the driver’s side of Mr Dawson’s parked car, looking back at her two little girls in the rear seat. The car’s windows were open and the student said “hello Mrs Dawson”.

Lyn was “rubbing her eyes” at the time, she said.

Prosecutor Crag Everson SC asked the woman what else she saw.

“A black eye,” she said.

Lyn said hello and made a comment that it was a hot day, putting on sunglasses.

“But I could still see the black eye,” KF said.

Chris Dawson leaves the Federal Court in Sydney on Friday. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Christian Gilles

KF said on another occasion at school she saw a female physical education teacher banging on the door to her office.

The teacher shared the office space with Mr Dawson.

“She couldn’t get in because the door was locked,” KF said. The door opened, and KF saw Mr Dawson and a student, his babysitter JC, leave the office. KF made a statement to police in March 2017.

She rejected suggestions from defence counsel Pauline David that she had never seen a black eye, or that it had been a “reddened” eye.

Mr Dawson’s former sister-in-law also gave evidence on Friday, saying her own mother voluntarily left the family home then disappeared.

Lynelle Dawson is the former wife of Mr Dawson’s older brother Peter. She said her parents were together until 1960, when she was nine years old.

Lynelle was the eldest of three children in the family. She ­remembered her mother, Marcia, took her down to the backyard and “had a little chat with me”.

Her mother told her: “Lynelle I don’t want to go.”

She told her mum: “Don’t go.”

They had “a bit of a chit chat and off I went as a child to a friend’s house to play”. They were living in Beverly Hills in southern Sydney. “And that was it. She left,” Ms Dawson said.

Her mother then moved to “a little boarding house” in Rockdale in southern Sydney.

They saw each other “a few times”, before her mother ­abruptly moved. She never saw her again.

Former sister-in-law of Chris Dawson, Lynelle Dawson, leaves the Federal Court. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Nikki Short

In August 2018, Lynelle conducted searches of New Zealand records and found details of a woman with the same first name and birthdate as her mother.

A certificate came about 10 days later by mail.

It listed her mother’s real name, and the name of “the gentleman she married”. It was “no one I knew”, she said.

Her mother “actually married twice” and died in 2002.

“We had no idea where she was,” she said.

Judge Ian Harrison SC asked Ms Dawson if she or anyone in her family reported her mother missing. “No, because she left on her own accord,” she said.

Mr Dawson’s defence is building a case that he is of good character.

Asked if she thought Mr Dawson would have killed his wife, Lynelle said: “I don’t think Chris is capable of such a thing.”

The court also heard Lyn Dawson’s former neighbour, Jill Breese, called police in the late 1980s to report previously sighting her in a nurse’s uniform. An officer told her Lyn was “under the pool”.