Claims that Chris Dawson received a phone call from his wife in the hours after she went missing have been dismissed as a ‘deliberate lie’ as the ex-rugby league star fights to be released from prison, a court has heard.
Dawson will appear in court again in Sydney on Wednesday as his legal team tries to overturn his conviction for the murder of his wife Lynette Simms more than four decades ago.
Dawson, 75, faces a hearing at the Court of Criminal Appeal after being sentenced to a maximum of 24 years in prison.
Mrs. Simms, a mother of two, disappeared from her family’s home in Bayview on January 8, 1982. Her body was never found and she has not contacted her friends or family.
Dawson’s lawyer, senior public defender Belinda Rigg SC, told the court that Dawson’s conviction should be quashed due to the unavailability of key evidence and witnesses that have been lost over the past four decades.
Judge Ian Harrison found Dawson guilty of murder in August 2022 and that he was driven by a ‘possessive crush’ on one of his teenage students, JC.
The prosecutor said the call Dawson said he received from his wife, Lynette Simms, could not have come from her because he believed she had been murdered. He labeled the call a ‘deliberate lie’
Chris Dawson and Lynette Simms (pictured) on their wedding day. Lynette disappeared in January 1982 and hasn’t been away since. Dawson was sentenced to 24 years for her murder
THE PHONECONVERSATION
During a police interview in 1991, Dawson told detectives that he had dropped his wife off at a bus stop in Mona Vale on the morning of January 9 and that she did not meet him later that afternoon at the Northbridge Baths, where he worked as a part-time lifeguard .
Dawson told police while he was at work that he received a long-distance call from his wife saying she had to leave for a while.
He also said he received subsequent phone calls from Ms Simms before she finally said she was leaving him.
A woman who worked at the Northbridge Baths as a teenager told the court during the trial that she remembered one time in the summer of 1981-82 when she answered a long-distance telephone call and asked a woman on the other end of the line to speak. to Chris Dawson or his brother Paul.
Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield told the court on Tuesday that there may have been a phone call but it could not have come from Ms Simms, who he said was murdered late on January 8 or early January 9.
“The phone, we would argue, there could have been a phone call … that it (Ms Simms) was on the other end of the line is a lie, a deliberate lie,” Mr Hatfield said.
Ms Rigg previously told the court it could not be established beyond reasonable doubt that Ms Simms had not made the call.
Judge Julie Ward – one of three judges hearing the appeal – noted on Tuesday that the only evidence about Ms Simms’ phone call came from Dawson.
The prosecutor said it was ‘unlikely’ that Lynette would have left her marriage and family (see a court sketch of Dawson on September 1, 2022 when he appeared in the Supreme Court charged with the murder of his wife)
ELEVEN PILLARS
On day two of the three-day hearing at the Court of Criminal Appeal, Mr Hatfield outlined what he described as eleven ‘pillars’ of the case, which he said reinforced Dawson’s guilt.
“There is no significant possibility that an innocent person has been convicted in this case,” Hatfield said.
Mr Hatfield said the first ‘pillar’ leading to Dawson’s conviction was the fact that Mrs Simms never spoke or had contact with anyone after January 8, 1982.
Second, he said, it was “inherently unlikely” that she would have “voluntarily abandoned the man she idolized” and the “children she adored.”
He pointed in particular to Ms Simms’ efforts to have children, including undergoing a fertility procedure.
Mr Hatfield’s third point was that she would not have lost communication with her parents and her siblings even if she had left Dawson.
He also said that at the time Ms Simms disappeared, Dawson was trying to build a “public, permanent, long-term partnership” with JC, asking her to marry him and going to her school prom as a date.
Fifth, Mr Hatfield said, Mrs Simms was committed to her marriage even though it deteriorated in 1981 when she became aware Dawson had cheated on her.
“If she didn’t leave when those other things happened, why would she leave when things looked better after counseling?” said Mr. Hatfield.
Mr Hatfield also pointed to what he described as the “atmosphere” of Dawson’s relationship with JC, which he said was “characterized by a degree of desperation and obsession.”
He said Dawson had made attempts to leave Ms Simms in his seventh count, including attempting to move to Queensland, planning to move into a flat in North Manly with JC and attempting to sell his house.
The prosecutor said Lynette Simms (pictured) would not have ‘voluntarily abandoned the man she idolized’ and the ‘children she adored’.
In his eighth point, he said Dawson had refused to accept JC’s attempt to break off their relationship before she went on holiday to South West Rocks.
He also said Dawson was the last person to see Mrs Simms alive and that he had the ‘opportunity and motive’ to kill her on January 8 and 9, 1982.
In his tenth point, Mr Hatfield said that after his wife disappeared, Dawson behaved in a way that was ‘wholly inconsistent with the alleged belief that (Mrs Simms) was alive and might return home.’
This included moving JC to his home, where she slept in the marital bed, and allowing her to search Mrs. Dawson’s clothing and jewelry.
Finally, Mr Hatfield said there is no evidence that Ms Simms is still alive, despite evidence from vital checks during the missing person investigation and three separate police investigations.
Dawson was sentenced to 24 years in prison, with 18 years of non-parole, after Judge Harrison found him guilty of murder.
Last year, Dawson was also convicted of one charge of carnal knowledge after a judge found he engaged in sexual activity with one of his students at a Sydney high school in 1980.
He was sentenced by Judge Sarah Huggett to three years in prison and had an additional year added to his non-parole period.
His non-parole period expires in August 2041, by which time he will be 93 years old.
New ‘no body, no parole’ laws passed by the NSW Parliament – dubbed ‘Lyn’s law’ – mean Dawson will not be paroled until he reveals where Ms Simms is buried.
The hearing before Judges Julie Ward, Anthony Payne and Christine Adamson continues.