Chris Dawson told Coles trolley boy to ‘stay away’ from student he had sex with, court hears

Chris Dawson grabbed and threatened a streetcar boy and told him to ‘stay away’ from a teenage student with whom he allegedly engaged in sexual activity, a court has heard.

Dawson is on trial in NSW District Court over allegations that he had a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old student during his time as a teacher at a Sydney secondary school.

The former Newtown Jets player, 74, pleaded not guilty to one count of carnal knowledge and claimed he had no sexual activity with the young girl until she was 17 years old in 1981.

The woman, who can only be known by the pseudonym AB, told the judge-only lawsuit that she first engaged in sexual activity with Dawson around August or September 1980, when she was a 16-year-old student in his class.

The timing of their first sexual activity is central to the process.

A man – who was 16 years old at the time – told the court on Tuesday that he had been grabbed and threatened by Dawson during an incident in 1980 and told him to stay away from AB.

Dawson has denied through his defense that he grabbed the boy.

The man, who cannot be identified, told the court on Tuesday that he had worked at AB in Coles in the north in the early 1980s.

He described her as “attractive” and said he had asked her out several times.

He said AB had already beaten back his advances before being confronted by a man, whom he identified as Chris Dawson, during a Saturday morning shift while picking up carts in the supermarket parking lot.

“A man I now know as Mr. Dawson came away from a car, out of the shadows, there was light pouring in, there are slits in the wall that let in the sunlight,” he said during his testimony on Tuesday.

“He said ‘hey you’ or words to that effect.”

The man said he was coached in rugby union by Dawson’s twin brother Paul and it took him a while to realize who he is.

He told the court that Dawson drove him into a concrete ramp.

“He pushed against my chest, not really aggressively, more in a menacing way, you could say,” the man told the court.

“Then he pushed my back against that wall, around my chest or lower neck, he wasn’t strangling me or anything like that, he was pushing and holding me.

‘He was a very big man. Both Dawson brothers looked like Chesty Bonds, that’s how we described them when, very muscular, blond, played for Newtown. So I knew them from football.

“And it took me a while to figure out who it was because I’d never met him before.”

The man told the court that Dawson had said words to the effect of, “Stay away from her, don’t go near her.”

“I was completely perplexed about what was going on and probably quite scared,” the man said.

‘I said, ‘Who?’ He said, ‘(AB) ‘… And suddenly the pieces fell together.’

He said he was “high-tailed” on the driveway back to the store and that was the only time he interacted with Dawson.

He told the court that the event took place in 1980 and that he could place the date as he did not have a learner’s license or car at the time.

Under cross-examination by attorney Claire Wasley, he denied suggestions that he was not threatened by Chris Dawson.

“I suggest Mr. Dawson did not touch you or threaten you in any way,” Mrs. Wasley asked.

“Disagree,” said the man.

Dawson was found guilty last year and sentenced to 24 years in prison for the murder of his wife Lynette Simms, who disappeared in January 1982 from their Bayview home on Sydney’s Northern Beaches.

He maintains his innocence and has filed an appeal.

Following a complaint in 1997, the Department of Education began investigating Dawson over the allegations of carnal knowledge.

The following year, department detectives spoke to AB, who issued a statement.

In June 1998, a letter was sent to Dawson’s Queensland home regarding an allegation of ‘improper conduct of a sexual nature’ with a female student.

He was later asked to respond to the allegations, trying to find out why his name should not be on the ‘not employed’ list.

In July 1998, Dawson called Pat Clear, a Department of Education researcher.

According to a file note read to the court, ‘Mr. Dawson stated that he had no intention of responding to the letters in writing and that he did not want his non-response to be read as an admission of anything’.

“He stated that he has no intention of returning to NSW and for that reason intends to make the effort to respond.”

The court heard on Tuesday that NSW Police launched Strike Force Southwood in 2018 to investigate allegations of inappropriate relationships between teachers and students in schools on Sydney’s Northern Beaches in the late 1970s and 1980s.

The officer in charge of the investigation, Detective Sergeant Laura Beacroft, told the court that they mounted the strike force after the publication of the Teacher’s Pet podcast.

The police took statements from AB in September 2018 and April 2019.

He was arrested at Surry Hills Police Station in June 2019 and charged with carnal knowledge.

Dawson’s carnal knowledge trial will conclude this week, with Judge Huggett set to deliver her verdict at a later date to be determined.