The Teacher’s Pet trial: the people involved in the case
Lyn Dawson disappeared 40 years ago. Here are the key people involved in the case.
THE VERDICT:
Watch Teacher’s Pet creator Hedley Thomas in a raw interview on Chris Dawson: ‘I think he’s pathetic’
Guilty: Handcuffed Chris Dawson taken to cells
From the courtroom: Live coverage of the judgement and verdict
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The Australian’s Hedley Thomas digs deep into a decades-old cold case, uncovering startling new evidence. Here are the people you’ve heard from, or about, during The Teacher’s Pet podcast, and follow-up series The Teacher’s Trial.
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The key people
Lyn Dawson
Registered nurse and devoted mother of two small girls when she vanished. Grew up near the beach in the close-knit Simms family in the Sydney suburb of Clovelly. Was married in 1970 to her high school sweetheart, Chris Dawson. She learned in late 1981 that her husband had been in an intense relationship with a schoolgirl, the family’s babysitter. Lyn has not been seen or heard from since early January 1982, and there has been no trace of her having started a new life.
Chris Dawson
Lyn’s husband, who denies murder. Lives on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. A former first grade rugby league player for the Newtown Jets in the 1970s, was a sports teacher at Sydney’s Cromer High School in 1980 when he invited a Year 11 schoolgirl to be his babysitter. He later began a sexual relationship with her. Chris said Lyn left him and the girls on January 9, 1982, telling him she wanted to have a few days away. He moved his young lover, “JC”, in almost immediately.
JC
Singled out for special attention as a Year 11 student at Cromer High School by Chris Dawson, her sports teacher, in 1980, as a 16-year-old faced troubles at home - her stepfather was a violent drunk who made life difficult at her mother’s crowded Dee Why flat. The relationship quickly developed. JC is not suspected by police of a role in Lyn’s alleged murder. She lives now on Sydney’s northern beaches and has no contact with Chris.
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Family
Paul Dawson
Chris’s twin brother. Known to team mates as ‘Passive Paul’ whereas twin Chris was ‘Cranky Chris’. Paul and Chris have had uniquely close ties all their lives. For years they needed to do almost everything together. Paul also became a high school sports teacher, and he and his wife, Marilyn, lived a few hundred metres from Chris and Lyn in Gilwinga Drive, Bayview. Paul is a strong defender of his brother, and moved with Chris to the Gold Coast in late 1984. He became a deputy principal.
Marilyn Dawson
Paul’s wife, and Chris Dawson’s sister-in-law. Marilyn and Paul lived in the same street as Chris and Lyn in Bayview. In her 1999 interview with police, Marilyn recalled that Chris and JC took shelter in her home upon their return from Queensland on Christmas Day in 1981, and that she did not tell Lyn about this. She felt that Lyn kept providing opportunities for Chris and JC to be together, and that Lyn did not fight for her marriage to Chris. Marilyn stated strongly that she did not believe Chris had any involvement in the disappearance of his wife.
Peter Dawson
The lawyer brother of Chris and Paul Dawson. Peter appeared for Chris and his family at the two coronial inquests in 2001 and 2003, clashing with witnesses and accusing Detective Damian Loone of being out to get his brother.
Helena Simms
Lyn’s mother. Helena loved and admired Chris, and believed he could do no wrong. She treated him very much as a son, and trusted him implicitly. It’s possible that Helena thought Chris was so close to perfection that it made Lyn reluctant to go to her mother with any worries she might have had. Helena considered JC’s presence in the family home an imposition on Lyn and Chris. Helena’s diary entries are featured throughout the two podcasts.
Pat Jenkins
Lyn’s sister. Shortly before she vanished 36 years ago, Lyn told Pat “there’s a dark side to Chris that nobody knows”.
Greg Simms
Lyn’s younger brother and a former police officer, Greg admired the footballing Chris Dawson. Chris was asked to be best man at Greg’s wedding to his wife, Merilyn. Greg and the rest of the Simms family believed Chris’s story in January 1982 that Lyn had left voluntarily to go away for a few days. They are burdened with regrets that they did not know more about Chris’s treatment of Lyn before she disappeared.
Merilyn Simms
Greg’s wife, and Lyn’s sister-in-law. Merilyn says Lyn’s relationship with Chris was very strained prior to her disappearance. She says Lyn was upset about JC living with them, but that Chris was determined to have his way.
Renee Simms
Renee is the daughter of Lyn’s younger brother, Greg. Lyn’s friends and relatives are often struck by Renee’s physical likeness to her aunt. Renee and the rest of the Simms side of the family have been estranged for two decades from Lyn’s youngest daughter, who backs her Dad.
Shanelle Dawson
Lyn and Chris’s eldest daughter. Shanelle was four when Lyn disappeared, and in the weeks leading up to her disappearance, Lyn had been excited to be getting her oldest daughter ready to start school. Years ago, Chris Dawson wrote to Shanelle to let her know he had seen a woman in the crowd on an episode of Britain’s Antiques Road Show that appeared to be Lyn. Shanelle feels she is close to getting an answer about what happened to her mother.
Wendy Jennings
Lyn’s cousin. Wendy and Lyn grew up together, and Wendy would often spend time with Lyn at the beach at Clovelly. Wendy has urged action in Lyn’s case in the many letters she’s written to different ministers of police over the years, the office of the DPP, Attorneys-General, premiers of New South Wales and even opposition politicians. Wendy’s interactions with the DPP have led her to believe the office may have misunderstood fundamental parts of the case.
JC’s mother
JC’s mother, now deceased. She had a fractious relationship with JC, and she drank to deal with her difficult and violent home life. Following Lyn’s disappearance, she told police she did not think her daughter JC was in a romantic relationship with Chris.
JC’s father
He said JC’s mother told him of the sexual relationship between Chris and JC when his daughter was still at school. He asked JC about it and she denied it. He never confronted Chris Dawson, nor reported the sports teacher.
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Key people from the murder trial
Justice Ian Harrison SC
The judge at Chris Dawson’s 2022 murder trial. Presided over the trial without a jury, after Dawson raised concerns about pre-trial publicity and the length of time it had taken to charge and prosecute.
Craig Everson SC
The prosecutor at Chris Dawson’s 2022 murder trial. A calm and steady hand throughout the proceedings.
Greg Walsh
Chris Dawson’s long-time solicitor. An experienced trial advocate in his own right.
Pauline David
Chris Dawson’s defence barrister at his 2022 murder trial. More than 30 years earlier, Ms David had been Dawson’s solicitor, sitting next to him for his 1991 police interview in Queensland. After the trial, Ms David was appointed a NSW District Court judge.
Robert Silkman
Chris Dawson allegedly approached Newtown Jets teammate Robert Silkman on a plane and asked for help to get rid of Lyn in October 1975, six years before she vanished.
In September 2018, Silkman was working as a security guard at the Qudos arena when he mentioned the alleged incident to a policeman he had come to know, and it was passed on to detectives on Lyn’s case.
The court heard Silkman was an associate of former Newtown Jets player and convicted international heroin trafficker Paul Hayward, the brother-in-law of Neddy Smith.
To the defence team at Chris Dawson’s trial, Silkman was a convicted thief and serial liar who could not be trusted.
Virginia Raison
Befriended Chris and Lyn Dawson through her then-boyfriend Phil Day in the 1970s. Over dinners at their favourite Chinese and Spanish restaurants, Lyn spoke about how much she wanted children. She told the murder trial that Lyn was upset Paul’s wife Marilyn had fallen pregnant so easily when Lyn hadn’t been able to. She said Lyn and Chris were on the verge of adopting a baby they had been offered when Lyn fell pregnant.
Judith Solomon
A former colleague of Lyn’s. Told the trial Lyn had a “huge, horrible black eye” when they ran into each other in a shopping centre. Ms Solomon once worked with Lyn at the Bank of NSW. She came forward and made a statement to police for the first time in October 2018 following The Teacher’s Pet podcast.
Kate Lester
A school friend of JC, Kate Lester gave evidence at Chris Dawson’s murder trial, objecting to the term “relationship” being used. “It wasn’t a relationship. It was molestation. I object it to being called a relationship,” she said. Described the moment Chris Dawson arrived at South West Rocks to collect JC after the alleged murder of his wife Lyn. Her father’s birthday is January 11. Mr Dawson arrived in his car before that birthday, she told the murder trial. JC “collapsed her body and cringed” when she saw Dawson arrive, KL said.
MC
A friend of babysitter JC. Testified to spending her 18th birthday – January 12, 1982 – in South West Rocks. JC “unfortunately” was not there for the birthday, after leaving a day or two earlier, MC said. “She left with our PE teacher Mr Dawson,” MC said. “I said ‘don’t go’. She said ‘I have no choice’. I did not want her to go.”
The Betoota Advocate
Satirical news site The Betoota Advocate was briefly mentioned in the murder trial of Chris Dawson. A witness known as PS shared one of the site’s articles with journalist Hedley Thomas. Defence lawyer Greg Walsh asked PS to read out the headline. “Paul Dawson arrests self to be with brother Chris,” PS said. PS said his daughter had shared it with him.
PS
PS was a Manly Boys High student who worked at Coles with Chris Dawson’s babysitter JC. They were about the same age and he fancied her. He gave evidence that he was pushing trolleys in the supermarket’s carpark when Dawson shoved him and told him to stay away from JC.
John Murray
Retired obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr John Murray gave evidence at Chris Dawson’s murder trial. He said Lyn Dawson underwent surgery as part of her attempts to conceive a child. Dr Murray said there was about a 50 percent chance of a viable conception and baby at the end of the procedure. Lyn subsequently fell pregnant with her first daughter.
Karen Longhurst
JC’s friend from the Gold Coast. Karen Longhurst gave evidence of Chris Dawson’s alleged control over JC. “She would go to the shops with a shopping list, and she had to give Chris back the shopping list and the change to show what she’d bought,” Ms Longhurst said.
Paul Cooper
The only witness that Chris Dawson called to give evidence at his trial. Paul Cooper says he met a woman he believed was Lyn in a pub in 1982. She was trying to set up her husband for murder, Cooper says. But he did not know Lyn and only “recognised” her from images on TV decades later. Prosecutor Craig Everson exposed Cooper’s chequered past and said he could be discounted.
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The police officers
Damian Loone
Detective Sergeant Damian Loone took over the investigation into Lyn’s disappearance in 1998. He interviewed JC, as well as many other people connected to Lyn and Chris Dawson, and led the dig at the Dawsons’ Bayview property in 2000 which unearthed a woman’s cardigan - believed to be Lyn’s - beneath the pool pavers. He believes Lyn was murdered and has struggled to let go of the case.
Bob Gibbs
A former detective sergeant and crime scene investigation officer who went on the 2000 dig at Bayview that unearthed a woman’s cardigan. Bob describes what he believed were stab marks in the cardigan.
Paul Hulme
Paul Hulme was a senior police officer on the northern beaches in 1998 when he assigned Lyn Dawson’s file to Damian Loone for reinvestigation. Paul had been urged to look into the case by his wife’s friend Sue Strath, who had been Lyn’s close friend and colleague. In The Teacher’s Pet podcast, Paul reveals his disgust at the lack of investigation into the case in the 1980s.
Geoff Shattles
The inspector responsible for investigating complaints of police inaction in 1985 in the case of Lyn Dawson. Inspector Shattles’ report faithfully quoted what Chris Dawson had previously told police, and noted that Lyn’s mother had never accused Chris Dawson of foul play. He also noted that Lyn’s brother Greg, who was in the police force at the time, had not contacted police regarding any suspicions he might have had.
Stuart Wilkins
Stuart Wilkins is a former top Sydney homicide cop who has investigated and helped solve some of Australia’s most notorious murders. Stuart began working on the Lyn Dawson case with a more senior officer, Sergeant Paul Mayger, in 1990, when police received information from JC. He was part of the team of investigators who conducted a search of the Dawsons’ Bayview property in 1990 with ground impulse radar equipment, and he and Sergeant Mayger interviewed Chris Dawson in Queensland in 1991.
Paul Mayger
Detective Sergeant Paul Mayger, a Sydney homicide squad detective, and his colleague Detective Senior Constable Stuart Wilkins interviewed Chris Dawson in 1991 about Lyn’s disappearance. The detectives questioned Chris at length about the events before and after Lyn vanished, but opportunities were missed to press him on inconsistencies revealed during the interview.
Mick Fuller
The retired New South Wales Police Commissioner - the former top cop in the state. Commissioner Fuller has apologised to Lyn Dawson’s family for police failings in the decades-old cold case. He says the fact that no body has been found is a complication, but it is one that has been overcome in other prosecutions.
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The Office of the DPP
Lloyd Babb
The NSW Director of Public Prosecutions from 2011 until 2021. Through the course of these podcast investigations it was revealed that Mr Babb was school captain at Asquith Boys High when Chris Dawson taught there in 1984, and that he played school football in the team coached by the Dawson twins. Mr Babb says he declared his conflict of interest to colleagues in 2011, but Lyn’s family was not told. Due to the conflict he has had no involvement in Lyn’s case. The Office of the DPP repeatedly cited insufficient evidence to prosecute - until giving police the green light to charge Dawson in 2018.
Nicholas Cowdery
Former Director of Public Prosecutions. Mr Cowdery wrote to Lyn’s sister Pat Jenkins when she sought answers about supposed sightings of Lyn after January 8, 1982. Mr Cowdery said the alleged sightings were among many factors he considered when reaching his decision that there was insufficient evidence to lay charges against Chris Dawson. Mr Cowdery left the Office of the DPP in 2011 and was succeeded by Lloyd Babb.
Kai Kalda
A former solicitor with the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Ms Kalda has spoken with Lyn’s sister Pat and cousin Wendy about why the case would not go ahead. According to Pat and Wendy, Ms Kalda said that one of the telling factors for not proceeding to prosecution was that Lyn’s mother Helena had seen Lyn after her disappearance. Pat and Wendy are concerned that false sightings of Lyn may have played a part in the DPP’s previous refusal to prosecute the case.
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Friends
Julie Andrew
Became good friends with Lyn when they were mothers of young children. Julie and her then husband moved in next to the house Lyn and Chris built on bushy acreage at Bayview in Sydney’s north. Julie witnessed key events including a backyard row between Lyn and Chris and the affection between Chris and JC. Julie went to police 16 years after Lyn had vanished.
Sue Strath (nee Browett)
Sue worked at a childcare centre with Lyn during the early 1980s. Lyn confided in Sue that JC, the family’s babysitter, was swimming naked in the pool at their Bayview home. Sue believes Lyn was in denial about her husband’s behaviour because she idolised Chris and didn’t want to believe he could betray her. In 1985, when Lyn had been missing for three years, Sue wrote to the Office of the Ombudsman about the lack of police action in the case.
Barbara Cruise
Former manager of the childcare centre where Lyn worked. Barbara could see Lyn struggling in her marriage through 1981. She was alarmed when Lyn reported that JC had moved into the family home.
Annette Leary
One of Lyn’s friends at the childcare centre. She recalls how much Lyn idolised her children, and would have done anything for them.
Anna Grantham
Lyn’s friend from the childcare centre. Anna regrets that she didn’t do more at the time to raise the alarm about Chris’s treatment of Lyn. Anna is still in touch with Lyn’s daughter Shanelle.
Lesley and John Cox
Lesley and her husband John were friends of Chris and Lyn Dawson. Lesley recalls visiting the Dawsons’ Bayview property in late 1983. Lyn had been missing since January the previous year, and was living with Chris. Lesley remembers seeing JC wearing Lyn’s rings, and she felt uncomfortable in the house. John played years of rugby in the Sydney team, Easts, with the Dawson brothers, Chris and Paul, before the twins went to the Newtown Jets.
Robyn Warren
One of Lyn’s friends on the northern beaches. Robyn’s husband Neville, a science teacher at Sydney Boys High, was friends with Chris. Robyn was alarmed when Lyn disappeared and perplexed when she didn’t get in touch. She presumed Lyn’s family had reported her missing and so did not contact police herself. She wishes she had done more at the time. She says Lyn would never have left her daughters.
Roslyn McLoughlin
Played tennis with Lyn in a friendly group of northern beaches Mums. She says she last saw Lyn about a week before Christmas in 1981, and that Lyn had seemed unhappy. Roslyn says Lyn pleaded with her to come back with her to Lyn’s home at Bayview, but Roslyn refused because it was just before Christmas and she was very busy. Roslyn does not believe that Lyn would have abandoned her children.
Rebecca Hazel
A former lawyer, ocean swimmer and aspiring author, Rebecca met JC when they worked together in a womens’ refuge on the Northern Beaches. The two became friends and JC has shared with Rebecca stories about her experiences with Chris Dawson, Lyn Dawson and Cromer High School.
Barbara Kilpatrick
A long-time friend of JC’s family, now deceased. Barbara had known JC since she was a child, and gave evidence at the 2003 inquest. She says that Chris and JC came to see her for advice after JC had moved into the Bayview home. She told them JC should move out and live with friends, but Chris did not want that and JC would not have gone against his wishes.
VW
A longtime family friend of JC. VW was with JC when she went camping at South West Rocks in early January, 1982. She remembers Chris Dawson arriving to pick JC up from the campsite, and that he had seemed nervous and agitated.
Phil Day
Chris’s close friend from Sydney Boys High, now deceased. Phil was a groomsman for the Dawsons when they wed in 1970. Phil gave evidence at the second coronial inquest.
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Cromer High
Bev McNally (nee Staniforth)
The Dawson family’s babysitter before JC. Came forward as a result of The Teacher’s Pet. Gave evidence at the trial that she saw Chris swing Lyn into a door frame “like a rag doll”, and on a separate occasion saw Chris hit Lyn with a tea towel.
Lesley Bush
Chris Dawson’s sports teaching colleague at Cromer High, now deceased. Lesley knew Lyn Dawson and liked her a lot. According to a student from the school, Michelle Walsh, Lesley was hysterical over Lyn’s sudden disappearance, and crying about it at school.
David Clark
Former northern beaches high school teacher. David has worked in six different high schools and says that in five of them there were relationships between students and teachers. Beverley, David’s wife, took over Chris Dawson’s position at Cromer High when he left in 1982.
Neil Buckeridge
A former Cromer High student who recalls an incident at the school in 1982 when Chris Dawson allegedly erupted after being taunted by a boy in a crowd. “One of the kids yelled out a smart arse comment. And he spun on his heels and he sprinted back to where we were all standing, he grabbed the kid who he thought had said it and lifted him off the ground and started slamming him against the wall.”
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Key people from the inquests
Jan Stevenson
The coroner presiding over the 2001 inquest. Ms Stevenson found at the conclusion of the inquest that this was a case of a murder by a known person - Chris Dawson.
Carl Milovanovich
The coroner presiding over the 2003 inquest into Lyn’s disappearance. Mr Milovanovich clashed with Chris’s lawyer brother Peter Dawson during the inquest, suggesting that Peter’s emotional connection to the case may have clouded his judgment. He also commented on the failure of Chris, Paul and Marilyn Dawson to attend the inquest.
Matt Fordham
The sergeant who presented the police case at the two coronial inquests into Lyn’s disappearance in 2001 and 2003.
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Other people with connections to the case
Kristin Hardiman
Kristin is a renowned artist. Her paintings of thoroughbreds including the mighty champion, Winx, are highly sought after. Kristin met Lyn Dawson in late 1981 at a northern beaches Christmas market, when Kristin was a struggling artist. Lyn commissioned Kristin to come to Bayview to photograph her daughters, and then paint the two girls. Kristin completed the portraits, and phoned in early January 1982 to arrange delivery. She says a man answered who said he was Lyn’s husband, and he said that Lyn had gone away and didn’t want the drawings anymore.
Jeff Linden
Jeff Linden is an experienced and senior New South Wales Magistrate, and as a young man he knew Lyn Dawson because he played football for Eastern Suburbs with Chris and Paul Dawson. Jeff has revealed publicly for the first time that in 1987, the new owner of the house at Gilwinga Drive, Neville Johnston, told him that Chris Dawson had been onto the property during their landscaping and renovations, and asked ‘where are you digging?’
Neville and Sue Johnston
Neville and his wife Sue moved into the Dawsons’ former home at Bayview in 1987, three years after Chris sold and moved out. The couple lived there for five years, and they did a lot of landscaping and renovation before they sold up in the early 90s. Sue says the ground at the property was extremely rocky and difficult to garden, and that she and Neville had an area at the back of the house concreted due to drainage problems. She says police investigators never searched in this concreted area. Discussing the property with lawyer Jeff Linden, Neville mentioned that Chris Dawson had been onto the property during their landscaping and renovations, and asked ‘where are you digging?’
Joe and Sandra Cimino
Joe Cimino and his father and brother are well known figures in the building industry on the northern beaches, and they did the digging and concreting for the new owner of Chris’s Bayview house, Neville Johnston, in the late 1980s. Joe has kept the diaries of his work at the time, and he recalls certain areas of the land as being quite soft. Joe and his wife Sandra later bought the house on Gilwinga Drive formerly owned by Paul and Marilyn.
Pam Eckford
Pam Eckford and JC’s mother were friends, and Pam has known JC since she was a small girl. When JC fled Queensland in 1990, escaping her husband Chris Dawson and their volatile marriage, she returned to Sydney and approached Pam who was then a welfare worker officer at a Women’s Resource Centre in Dee Why. Pam became JC’s case worker, and helped her make contact with Lyn’s family - Helena, Greg and Merilyn Simms - giving JC the opportunity to reveal new information about the events surrounding Lyn’s disappearance in 1982.
Debbie Malone
A clairvoyant who has helped police investigating violent crime for two decades. Three months after the DPP’s rejection of the second coroner’s recommendation of a murder trial, police recruited Debbie to see if she could shine any light on the whereabouts of Lyn’s remains.
Kay
A successful Sydney businesswoman who met the Dawson twins in 2007 at the home of their mutual friend, Phil Day. Kay chatted to Chris Dawson and asked him about his first marriage. She recalls that Paul suddenly appeared and both men said Lyn had gone off with a cult in the Blue Mountains. Kay had the impression that Paul joined the discussion in order to guide Chris on what to say, and make sure he didn’t reveal too much.
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Experts interviewed for the podcast
Michael Barnes
Former State Coroner for both Queensland and New South Wales. Mr Barnes has helped solve homicides including cold cases. Mr Barnes discusses the framework under which the DPP operates, explaining that the Director of Public Prosecutions is an independent statutory officer who determines whether a prosecution will proceed, and that they are not required to provide reasons for their decision.
Helen Roebuck
An independent scientist who has previously worked with NSW Police. Helen has expertise in DNA analysis, blood pattern analysis and body fluid detection, and after listening to the podcast, she has many questions about the cardigan that police discovered at the Bayview property during the 2000 dig.
Paul Curby
A former New South Wales Police detective who specialises in large white collar investigations in Australia and internationally. Paul examines the precise wording and construction of written statements, emails, letters and other documents to identify any clues in the language that could indicate deception or hidden truths.
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Other people interviewed for the podcast
JM
JM was a teenager in 1982, working at Northbridge Baths where Chris Dawson was a lifeguard. JM still has her diary from the time, confirming she was working in the kiosk on the day Lyn failed to meet her mother as arranged - the day Chris says Lyn phoned the kiosk to tell him she had gone to the Central Coast with friends.
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