Chris Dawson is bombarded with death threats just hours after being locked up

In dramatic day on Tuesday, Justice Harrison found Dawson guilty just after 3pm – bringing to a close a mystery that has haunted Lynette’s family and Sydney’s northern beaches for four decades.

His Honour said Dawson was motivated by his obsessive infatuation with schoolgirl babysitter JC, with the fear of losing her and clearing the impediment that his wife Lyn represented, as well as not losing hold of his assets as would happen in a divorce.

There were gasps in the courtroom the moment the verdict was handed down – following some 4.5 hours of the judge reading out his reasons – with Dawson shaking his head very slightly and his twin brother Paul muttering ‘bulls***’.

Two prison officers entered the room and handcuffed him. Dawson appeared to limp as he was led away, arms stretched awkwardly in front of him, to be taken into custody. 

He spent t he night in the cells at Sydney’s Surry Hills police centre before being taken to Silverwater prison in western Sydney on Wednesday. 

As his twin was led away, Paul Dawson could be heard talking about a woman – saying ‘I told her’ – and complaining about not being able to testify about some aspect of his brother’s case.

In his decision, Justice Harrison said that potentially losing JC in early 1982 was a motive for murder: ‘I am satisfied he resolved to kill his wife’, and that there was also the financial motive of potentially losing his investments. 

‘The evidence does not reveal how he killed Lynette Dawson, nor where her body is now,’ he said. 

He said that the accused told a series of lies about his wife still being alive after her disappearance and about his missing her afterwards.

Lynette’s brother Greg Simms said after the verdict that his sister had been ‘betrayed by the man she loved’, and plead for her killer to reveal where her body is.

‘This is a milestone in our journey of advocating for Lyn, however the journey is not complete, she is still missing,’ he said outside court.

‘We still need to bring her home, we’d ask Chris Dawson to find it in himself to finally do the decent thing and allow us to bring Lyn home to a peaceful rest, showing her the dignity she deserves.’

Despite finding that he was not satisfied Dawson ’caused any of the bruising on Lynette’ or that he ‘was physically violent towards her’, Justice Harrison found him guilty of murder.

He was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Lynette is dead, that she has not been seen or heard since on or around January 8, 1982 and that she did not leave her home voluntarily.

He was also satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Dawson ‘had a possessive infatuation with’ the schoolgirl babysitter, JC. 

Reading through his written reasons for his verdict, Justice Harrison described some of the evidence in Dawson’s defence during the trial as ‘fanciful, absurd and lies’. 

‘I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt Lynette Dawson never telephoned Christopher Dawson after 8 January 1982 and … that she did not leave her home voluntarily,’ Justice Harrison said. 

Dawson was described during a summary of the crown case by His Honour as ‘an unfaithful and violent man’.  

The judge also said one of Dawson’s relatives, his brother-in-law Ross Hutchins, had falsified an alleged sighting he had made of Lynette at Gladesville, just months after her disappearance, and that the sighting was a ‘fabrication’.

Discounting all other alleged sightings, His Honour said, ‘I am satisfied that none of the sightings were genuine.  

‘She was not mentally unstable, she adored her children…she was still hopeful. She was still talking in affectionate terms about her unfaithful husband. 

‘That she would step from her husband’s car … and decide to evaporate forever is not a reasonable possibility. The proposition is ludicrous.’  

While calmly reading out his judgement, Justice Harrison said he was willing to believe ‘beyond reasonable doubt that Chris Dawson’s evidence he had received a call from Lyn at a swimming pool on the day after his wife’s disappearance was ‘a lie’. 

Justice Harrison also found that Dawson’s accounts of purported phone calls from his wife after her disappearance ‘beyond reasonable doubt … are lies’.

‘I do not accept Lynette Dawson … would continue to remain in contact with the very person who was … the reason for her departure,’ Justice Harrison said. ‘The contention … is simply absurd.’ 

The judge described the evidence of the schoolgirl babysitter JC, with whom Dawson had an affair as mostly reliable, and that her account of being groomed for a sexual relationship as believable.

He said that Dawson’s contention that his sexual relationship with JC did not recommence in 1982 until April of that year ‘cannot be true’.  

‘She had been swept up … and was confused and conflicted,’ he said and found that JC’s evidence had not been corrupted by her subsequent divorce from him years later. 

However Justice Harrison rejected the evidence of JC, and of a former football team mate Robert Silkman, that the accused had conversations with them about hiring ‘a hitman’ to murder Lynette.  

Justice Harrison said the crown had established beyond reasonable doubt that Dawson determined he would leave the relationship with his wife and enter a substituted relationship with JC.

‘I am satisfied that Mr Dawson was obsessed with JC and with the fear of losing her. He decided he would end his marriage and move on with JC,’ he said.

‘That does not stand alone to prove that he murdered his wife.’

He described evidence from two women who relayed stories allegedly told to them by Lynette of violence against her by the accused as unreliable.

He said the women had been influenced by the Teacher’s Pet podcast.

However he said he found the account by Lynette’s next door neighbour, Julie Andrew, of seeing Dawson pushing Lyn up against a trampoline and screaming at her shortly before she went missing to be true.