Teacher’s Pet podcast: Missing statement stuns Lyn’s family

Lyn Dawson’s family is stunned a handwritten statement by her husband and suspected killer went missing for decades.

Lyn Dawson’s family is stunned a handwritten statement by her husband and suspected killer went missing for decades, as experienced lawyers said it could be used as significant evidence against him.

The Australian yesterday revealed Chris Dawson’s lies and omissions in the statement he wrote in his own hand and provided to police in August 1982, seven months after Lyn vanished from their home at Bayview on Sydney’s northern beaches.

The statement went missing along with the police file in the 1990s and was not known to detective Damian Loone, who picked up the investigation in 1998, or to the two coroners who looked at the case in 2001 and 2003.

Both coroners delivered findings recommending Mr Dawson be charged with his wife’s murder, but the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions has always maintained there is not enough evidence to prosecute.

Lyn’s brother, Greg Simms, said he wasn’t aware of the statement until it was detailed in The Australian’s investigative podcast series The Teacher’s Pet .

“It’s one of the things that went missing when all the statements went missing,” he said. “It’s of great significance.”

His wife Merilyn said: “When that was on the podcast, we were listening to it and we looked at each other with wide eyes. We grabbed each other’s hands to say ‘oh my goodness’.”

Detectives yesterday confirmed to the family that the statement was now part of the brief of evidence recently handed to the DPP. The Australian obtained the 1982 statement from a source unconnected to police or the DPP.

Portraying himself as an abandoned husband, Mr Dawson failed to mention in the statement of his sexual relationship with teenager Joanne Curtis.

He blamed his marriage problems on Lyn’s spending, and said that in the weeks before she vanished he went away for three days “to be by myself”. In reality, he had driven north with Ms Curtis, who says their intention was to start new lives together. But she said she insisted they return because she missed her sisters and friends.

Two days after Lyn went missing, Mr Dawson moved Ms Curtis into his home and she became stepmother to his two children, aged four and two. He strenuously denies killing his wife.

Queensland defence lawyer Bill Potts said the statement’s emergence could be significant.

“The prosecution should have the opportunity to look at all of the evidence in its proper context,” he said. “If it proceeds to trial they will certainly use it, or attempt to use it. But there are fairly strict rules around the use to which that evidence can be put.”

Mr Dawson may have misled police because of his affair or a feeling of being under suspicion, rather than because he had committed any crime.

Defence lawyer Nick Dore said: “Looking at the document on the face of it, it would be a pretty significant consideration in the DPP reconsidering prosecuting him.”

Do you know more about this story? If so, contact thomash­@theaustralian.com.au