[ad_1]
“I strongly dispute that because … that particular day was starting with the hope of saving something which after 13 years was very much floundering,” Dawson told police in 1991.
JC claimed that in late 1981, Dawson had parked his car outside a building while she waited inside wearing her school uniform. She alleged he later told her, “I went inside to get a hitman to kill Lyn, but then I decided I couldn’t do it because innocent people could be hurt”.
Lynette Dawson on ABC’s Chequerboard program in 1975.Credit:NSW Supreme Court/ABC
Dawson told police this was a “complete and utter fabrication”.
The defence suggested JC was on a mission to destroy Dawson and had only raised the allegation amid a bitter custody battle after their separation in 1990, having married him in January 1984.
Chris and Lynette Dawson at their wedding in 1970.
The trial also heard from Dawson’s former Newtown Jets teammate Robert Silkman, who claimed Dawson had asked him on the plane back from an end-of-season trip in 1975 “if he knew anyone who could get rid of his wife”.
The defence argued there was the possibility that Lynette “abandoned the home of her own accord”, and relied on several phone calls Dawson claimed he had received and multiple reported sightings.
Dawson said he had dropped Lynette off at a Mona Vale bus stop to go shopping on January 9, 1982, but instead of meeting him at the Northbridge Baths later that day, she had called to say she “needed time away”.
Crown prosecutor Craig Everson, SC, had argued that one of the dominoes in Dawson’s plan was to have family friend Phillip Day and Lynette’s mother Helena Simms as witnesses to his receipt of the alleged phone call and someone to mind his two daughters that night who had also been at the pool.
Everson said Dawson’s “engineered window of quiet seclusion” gave him the opportunity to dispose of a body before making his way north to collect JC from her holiday at South West Rocks.
The prosecutor said it “beggars belief” that Dawson would have then brought JC into his matrimonial home “if he honestly, truthfully believed” his wife was returning within a few days.
JC said Dawson told her “Lyn’s gone, she’s not coming back” and the wardrobe had been bursting with clothes. She said her diamond ring was later made “using the diamonds from Lyn’s engagement ring and eternity ring” left in the house.
Dawson reported Lynette missing on February 18, 1982. The Crown alleged that a newspaper advertisement about her disappearance, placed in March, was part of Dawson’s “ongoing, deceptive attempts to present himself as a deserted husband”.
Defence barrister Pauline David, who has since been sworn in as a judge of the NSW District Court, said Dawson gave his wife a reason to not want to be with him when he left their home with JC.
She said Dawson was at a significant forensic disadvantage regarding bank card and phone records, submitting that those that might have supported that Lynette Dawson was alive in the early months of 1982 were unavailable due to the passage of time.
David grilled police witnesses over their investigations, suggesting deliberate omissions were made.
Lynette was allegedly sighted at a Central Coast fruit shop, outside Gladesville Hospital, on Macquarie Street in the city during a royal visit in March 1983 and at the former Rockcastle Hospital in June 1984, although five nurses gave evidence they had never worked with someone by that name.
“At some point in time, she has potentially created a new life, she has subsequently passed away, she has met with misadventure by some other way, or even the deeply unpleasant possibility of her taking her own life,” Dawson’s barrister submitted.
David said that however inappropriate Dawson and JC’s relationship, and how much he had failed Lynette, it did not make him a murderer.
Our Breaking News Alert will notify you of significant breaking news when it happens. Get it here.
[ad_2]
Source link
