The Teacher’s Pet: Dawson’s teen bride isolated, powerless, afraid

Murder suspect Chris Dawson exerted total control over his former teen lover Joanne Curtis after they moved to Queensland.

Joanne Curtis, right, with friend Karen Cook, left, in Coomera on the Gold Coast in November 1988.

Murder suspect Chris Dawson exerted total control over his former teenage lover Joanne Curtis after they moved to Queensland to start a new life, a friend says.

Karen Cook spent many days with Ms Curtis when they both had young children and has ­described her as living like a “Stepford wife” in a large but isolated house on the back blocks of the Gold Coast.

“Joanne confided to us that she was frightened of Chris, that she was given a very small amount each week to keep the house and provide for the children,” Ms Cook told The Australian.

“She said she had to do everything he asked of her or there was trouble in the house.”

Mr Dawson had been in an affair with Ms Curtis for more than a year when his wife, Lyn, vanished from their home in Bayview on Sydney’s northern beaches in 1982.

Ms Curtis was 16 when it started, and one of his students at Cromer high school.

In 1984 they married and sold the Bayview house, using the proceeds to live mortgage-free in a new home they had built on acreage at Foxwell Rd at Coomera, near the newly opened theme park Dreamworld.

Behind high fences and gates, the home had a swimming pool and tennis court.

Mr Dawson’s twin brother Paul, his wife Marilyn and their children moved to an address nearby with the same features.

The brothers and their wives had left behind the dark shadow of Lyn’s disappearance, and at the start of 1985 Mr Dawson began working as a teacher at Keebra Park High school.

The same year, Ms Curtis and Mr Dawson had a daughter, Kristin, together.

Ms Cook would meet Ms Curtis at another friend’s house for swims or go to Dreamworld, where the cracks in the marriage were exposed.

Twins Chris Dawson, left, and Paul Dawson, right.

Lyn’s two young daughters, Shanelle and Sherryn, aged four and two when she went missing, were caught in the middle.

“By that stage she spoke of Lyn’s daughters as being spoiled and said she did the bare minimum for them,” Ms Cook said.

“I know I felt sorry for those children as they were still quite young.

“I said to Joanne that it was not their fault that Chris favoured them.

“She talked of Chris having a voracious sexual appetite and she could not say no to him. Also that he liked role-playing with dress-ups in the bedroom, which she didn’t like but he forced upon her.

“She appeared to have very little freedom. ‘Almost Stepford wife’ was my observation.”

Ms Cook has been interviewed for a new episode of the investigative podcast series The Teacher’s Pet, available tomorrow.

Asked whether one of Mr Dawson’s demands was for Ms Curtis to dress up as a schoolgirl, Ms Cook confirmed: “Yes. Which I thought was strange.”

She was invited to the Dawson home just once and “it was a very strange experience”.

“Everyone including the children seemed to be walking on eggshells. I got the impression that they were not familiar with entertaining. I guess I knew enough of her life by that time to be very wary of Chris Dawson and although you say he was attractive I did not find that, as I did not like him after knowing what her life was like with him.

“He was critical of her in our presence, belittling her, which was uncomfortable.”

Mr Dawson denies killing his wife.

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