Lynette’s signature forged after Chris Dawson said wife was ‘not coming back’

A babysitter has denied cutting Lynette’s face out of photos while saying Chris Dawson said Lynette was “not coming back”, a court has heard.

The teen babysitter who moved into allegedly murdered woman Lynette Dawson’s home just days after she disappeared was accused of cutting Lynette’s face out of family photos, a court has heard.

Lynette’s husband Chris Dawson, 73, is standing trial for the murder of Lynette more than 40 years after she disappeared in January 1982.

On her third day of giving evidence, the then 17-year-old babysitter — who moved into Chris Dawson’s home after his first wife went missing, aged 33 — told the defence that when she moved in Dawson told her his wife was never coming back.

“He definitely said Lynn’s gone, she is not coming back, come and help look after the children,” she said.

She told the court she moved into the house because she felt she had nowhere else to go and attempts to escape Dawson had proved futile.

The babysitter known as JC in a photo from 1981.

Defence barrister Pauline David suggested to the former babysitter — known as JC for legal reasons — that it was she and not Dawson who had wanted to get rid of Lynette’s clothes.

“I suggest to you that in fact that if you wore any of Lynette’s clothes it had nothing to do with Chris Dawson suggesting that you did it,” Ms David said to the witness.

She replied: “I would never have put on someone else’s clothes.”

In a fiery exchange a short time later, Ms David questioned the babysitter’s account that Chris Dawson had later bundled up his first wife’s clothes into green garbage bags. She suggested that the babysitter had instigated their removal.

“I want to suggest to you that by getting rid of the clothes that was one way you were trying to cut Lynette Dawson out of the life of Christopher Dawson,” she said.

“No,” the former babysitter said.

“Just as you did cut her out of many photographs, didn’t you?”.

She denied it but Ms David suggested that was “a lie”.

On trial for murdering his wife Lynette 40 years ago, Chris Dawson (left) and his twin brother leave court. Picture: Jane Dempster

JC was also accused by Ms David of lying in a 1998 police statement in which she said Marilyn Dawson, the wife of Chris Dawson’s brother Paul, had forged the signature on an insurance policy as their handwriting was “small and neat”.

Her statement in 1998 read to the court said: “I was present when there was a discussion at our house between Chris, Paul and Marilyn. It was agreed that Marilyn would sign Lynn’s signature on this document.”

Ms David said: “You made it up to leave the impression or create an impression that … there was insurance involved in Mrs Dawson’s disappearance.”

Ms David continued: “You were using that as an opportunity to tell yet another vicious lie about Mr Dawson and his family.”

The trial in the NSW Supreme Court under Justice Ian Harrison continues.

Originally published as Lynette’s signature forged after Chris Dawson said wife was ‘not coming back’