Dawson had long denied any allegations of wrongdoing, claiming his wife had separated him and their two young children when they were just two and four. But suspicion dogged Dawson for many years, and allegations of his role in his wife’s disappearance found a new audience with the 2018 launch of the “Teacher’s Pet” podcast by Australian investigative journalist Hedley Thomas. The podcast looked at the police investigation and gathered new evidence, including testimony that Dawson was having sex with the student, known as JC, when his wife disappeared. During the judges-only trial, several witnesses claimed to have seen Lynette Dawson in the years after 1982, but one by one, the judge dismissed these claims as incorrect or false. Harrison said that while the verdict was not supported by direct evidence, he was satisfied by the Crown’s view that Dawson had fallen in love with JC to the extent that he saw no other way to be with her than to kill Lynette. “The totality of the circumstantial evidence satisfies me that Lynette Dawson is dead, that she died on or about January 8, 1982, and that she did not voluntarily leave her home,” Harrison said. “I am satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the only reasonable inference that the circumstances permit is that Lynette Dawson died on or about January 8, 1982 as a result of a knowing and willful act committed by Mr. Dawson with the intent to cause her to die. death.” Outside court, Dawson’s attorney, Greg Walsh, told reporters that his client would appeal. “Mr Dawson has always maintained, and continues to maintain, his absolute innocence of the crime for which he has been convicted, and will continue to maintain that innocence,” Walsh said, according to Nine News affiliate CNN.
“Lynette Dawson is dead”
The Dawsons met as teenagers and later married and had two children. Dawson had long maintained that his wife had abandoned the family and that he had spoken to her in the weeks following her disappearance.
Those claims were dismissed by the judge, who said it “defies common sense” that a woman “supposedly desperate to leave her marriage” would call him to give him updates on the “status of her decision to leave”.
“I am satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Dawson’s reported telephone conversations with Lynette Dawson after January 1982 are lies,” Harrison said.
Harrison also discovered that claims that Lynette Dawson used her credit card immediately after her disappearance were fabricated and that sightings of her in subsequent years were incorrect or false.
“I am satisfied that none of the alleged sightings were genuine sightings of Lynette Dawson,” Harrison said.
The Crown submitted evidence from exhaustive investigations that included interviews and public records that showed Dawson had not used her passport or accessed Australia’s health, tax or any other public system since 1982.
He also said he reached that conclusion based on the fact that no one had come forward with information about her disappearance despite intense publicity about the case, including the “Teacher’s Pet” podcast, coronial inquests in 2001 and 2003 and several television programs .
Details from babysitters
The judge reiterated the relationship between Dawson and JC, his former student who later became his wife. The court heard she was a student in his PE class at Cromer High School in Sydney. When she left school they had sex and he had fallen in love with her, the court heard. Harrison said he found the evidence from JC to be “true and credible”. The court heard that JC’s family life was difficult. he lived at home with a “violent, aggressive and controlling” stepfather in a cramped apartment where they drank excessively. She had turned to her teacher for support and guidance, Harrison said. “(JC) was understandably attracted by any relief she could get from a less-than-perfect domestic situation,” Harrison said in the ruling. In 1980, JC began babysitting for the Dawson family, the court heard. Dawson also gave her driving lessons and one day, while in the car, he declared his love and kissed her. They had sex about a week later, when she was 16. After that, they regularly had sex in his car, Harrison said, recounting JC’s testimony. On these occasions, Dawson would tell his wife that he was studying in the library. That same year, the violence in JC’s home had become unbearable and she moved into the Dawson family home. JC said Dawson would sing “hard songs” to his wife and they would have sex when Lynette was in the shower or had fallen asleep. The Crown claimed Dawson was obsessed with JC and within days of his wife’s disappearance on January 8 he drove his former student back to his home. The Crown case argued that “he was not prepared to waste time before settling her in his home”. Harrison said: “By the time the relationship became sexual, Mr Dawson was faced with the stark reality that he could not remain married but maintain an even stronger relationship with (JC).”
Escape to a new life
Harrison delivered his verdict over several hours on Tuesday, offering a detailed analysis of the evidence presented by several witnesses during the three-month-long trial. Harrison pointed out that several witnesses had died in the decades between Lynette’s disappearance and the start of the trial in May. However, he said a review of the testimony of those witnesses suggests their evidence was not critical to the outcome. Harrison said he wasn’t convinced Dawson was violent toward Lynette Dawson, but there was no doubt the marriage was troubled. “The circumstances lead persuasively to the conclusion that Mr. Dawson has decided that he will end his marriage and move on with (JC),” Harrison said. The marriage between JC and Dawson ended in 1991 and Dawson disputed some of her evidence as the words of a traumatized ex-wife. Harrison found that JC had been drawn into a situation over which she had little control. JC gave evidence of Dawson’s controlling behaviour, saying she watched the places she went, the friends she made and the clothes she wore. This obsession with JC was enough to motivate him to kill Lynette, Harrison found. It is still unclear what happened to Lynette Dawson. Harrison said the evidence did not reveal how Dawson killed her, whether he did it with the help of others or by himself. “(The evidence) does not reveal where or when she did it, nor does it reveal where Lynette Dawson’s body is now. The charge of murder in this trial is not supported by direct evidence,” he said. However, he said he found the evidence presented by the Crown to be “persuasive and compelling”. The judge ordered Dawson, who was sitting in court to hear the verdict, remanded in custody. This story has been updated
