Twins Chris and Paul Dawson manipulated school girls: Witness

A former Sydney schoolgirl has told a court she had vivid memories of ‘kissing and cuddling’ in a school pool.

Chris Dawson (green shirt) and his twin brother Paul Dawson (pink shirt) had an extraordinarily close bond.

A former schoolgirl from Sydney’s northern beaches has told a court that twin brothers Chris and Paul Dawson groomed and manipulated her and another young student, saying she had vivid memories of “kissing and cuddling” in a school pool.

The woman, who for legal reasons can only be known as Witness CD, gave evidence on Monday at Chris Dawson’s trial in Sydney’s District Court for allegedly having sex in 1980 with a 16-year-old student known as AB.

Her testimony painted a picture of alleged predatory behaviour by the twin brothers, who were leading near identical lives at the time as married fathers and school teachers, while other witnesses told of Chris Dawson’s blatant affection for AB in the schoolyard.

CD told Sydney’s District Court that Paul Dawson was her health teacher at Forest High in 1980, when she was in Year 9.

She became his family’s babysitter and coached his daughter in netball.

CD said while she was in Years 9 and 10, she and Paul Dawson would go on beach trips with Cromer High teacher Chris Dawson and schoolgirl AB, who was then in Years 11 and 12.

A sketch of Dawson in Sydney's Downing Centre. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Vincent de Gouw

The inseparable Dawson twins would take the two schoolgirls aside during and after fitness classes they ran at a Lindfield school, the court was told.

CD forcefully rejected public defender Claire Wasley’s suggestion that other people were present when the twin brothers took the two schoolgirls for a swim in the Lindfield school pool after the fitness classes.

“I remember very vividly what happened in the Lindfield fitness classes,” CD said.

“I can guarantee you there was zero people in the pool at the time that we were kissing and cuddling and doing whatever.

“I would not have done it with anyone else in the pool. And I know that Chris and (AB) would not have done it with anyone else in the pool.”

She said it was a 25 metre pool and they were all at the shallow end, probably 10 metres apart.

“They were together, bodies together,” CD told the court when asked what she could see happening between AB and Chris Dawson.

CD was being questioned by Ms Wasley about The Teacher’s Pet podcast when she told the court: “I didn’t think anyone … could be manipulated the way we were.”

Ms Wasley asked CD if she was referring to media manipulation.

“No. By Paul and Chris, because when you’re young you think it’s all fine,” she said.

Ms Wasley said: “I suggest that the times you’ve described socialising with the complainant and the accused and Paul Dawson didn’t occur until you were in Year 10. Do you agree or disagree with that?

CD replied: “I’m unsure of the dates I first socialised with and was in the company of all three. I know what happened, I know we were being groomed, I don’t know the exact dates.”

AB has previously told the court she and Chris Dawson would be in the Lindfield school swimming pool engaging in sexual activity while CD and Paul Dawson were at the other end of the pool.

Chris Dawson married AB in 1984, two years after he murdered his first wife, Lyn, to be with the teenager. Paul Dawson has not been charged with any offence.

Both men were former star rugby league footballers with the Newtown Jets, and lived in homes they built on the same street, Gilwinga Drive in Bayview.

Another former Cromer High student, Phil Webster, gave evidence that in 1980 he was in Year 9 and would see Chris Dawson and AB together “daily”. AB was a year ahead of him at school.

He told the court of the pair’s “constant physical closeness”.

“She was like his sidekick. It was like she was doing playground duty with him which was unusual,” Mr Webster said.

Another former schoolgirl told the court she saw AB sitting on Chris Dawson’s desk, with Dawson standing between her legs.

The witness, who cannot be named as she was underage at the time of the events, said she was in Year 9 in 1980 and had to have a lot of dental work done.

She remembers taking a note to the sports department staff room to explain an absence for a dentist visit.

“I knocked, the door was a bit ajar, I went in. AB was sitting on the desk, and Chris Dawson was standing between her legs.

“He asked me: ‘What do you want?’ And I said: ‘I’ve got a note for sport’, and just threw it on the desk and left.”

The witness said she had previously seen AB and Dawson “together around the school a lot I guess, and quite close physically I guess, like holding hands or that kind of … it wasn’t hidden I guess is a way to put it.”

A schoolgirl who left Cromer High part way through 1980 – the year of Chris Dawson’s alleged offending – says she saw Dawson standing between AB’s legs outside the school gym.

“Definitely they were close – an intimate thing,” the witness said.