This should be the end of the road for Christopher Michael Dawson, murderer, child sex offender, prisoner.
But it won’t be.
This humiliation – his appeal flatly rejected by the Court of Criminal Appeal – means Dawson should finally accept his fate.
He murdered his lovely first wife, Lyn in 1982, and stole his children’s right to the safety and care of their mother.
He groomed and abused a schoolgirl and then married her.
After the 2018 release of The Teacher’s Pet, and Dawson’s arrest, he fought his criminal trial for the murder of Lyn all the way to the door of the High Court of Australia, trying to get a permanent stay.
The High Court declined to even hear the case.
And when the murder judgment came, it was sweeping: Justice Harrison found Dawson a liar of such breathtaking audacity that he took his little girls to the pool while their mother’s corpse lay unburied.
But Dawson doesn’t give up.
It’s still possible he could appeal to the High Court of Australia.
First, Dawson would have to persuade the public defender’s office to spend yet more taxpayers’ money on an appeal.
The High Court hears only a fraction of the cases that seek special leave to appeal. Dawson would have to demonstrate his was a case of ‘major importance’.
Usually, the High Court will hear matters that raise some new point of law that hasn’t been considered before, or are of high public importance, are essential to clarify a question of law that has been decided in inconsistent ways by lower courts, or involve the administration of justice.
It’s possible that the High Court could consider Dawson’s a matter of high public importance, given the length of his sentence – 24 years for the murder, three for the carnal knowledge.
And while the Court of Criminal Appeal found there was “no doubt about the applicant’s guilt”, it did quibble with Justice Harrison’s reasons – finding he had failed to clearly explain the reasoning behind his finding that Dawson’s lies amounted to a ‘consciousness of guilt’.
That could give Dawson a crack of light.
Shortly after the decision on Thursday, I rang Lyn’s brother Greg and his wife Merilyn Simms.
Greg described the one-minute hearing as “the longest minute of my life”, so fearful was he that Dawson would win.
“I hope he sits back in his cell and enjoys the next 20 years,” Greg said.
Merilyn Simms said the family was “very grateful that justice has been done, as far as we’re concerned, twice over now. And we just hope that whoever has to make the decision as to whether he’s allowed to proceed any further really thinks carefully about using the public purse.
“Enough’s enough.”
Claire Harvey is host of The Australian’s daily news podcast The Front. Hear it wherever you get podcasts.
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