Wife killer Chris Dawson’s life has been threatened during the 48 hours he has spent in lock-up since his conviction, the NSW Supreme Court has been told.
Dawson on Thursday appeared before the same court he was found guilty of murdering his first wife Lynette Dawson in earlier this week – but the smart suit he wore for the verdict was gone.
The 74-year-old limped into court wearing a Corrective Services dark green sweatshirt, track pants and green runners.
His lawyer Greg Walsh said the one-time teacher and football star had already received serious death threats from several inmates in Silverwater jail and had asked for protection but had not been given it.
Mr Walsh also said that Dawson was ‘in shock and sad about his predicament, and worried about his children’.
Mr Walsh did not make an application for bail on Thursday morning.
He asked Justice Ian Harrison for a recommendation that Dawson get care from mental health services, but His Honour said he didn’t have the power to tell Corrective Services what to do.
Following his client’s conviction, Mr Walsh said that Dawson maintained his innocence and would be appealing the guilty verdict. He will be sentenced on November 11.
Detectives who spent years poring over Lynette’s murder case have revealed the most likely spot she is buried, believing her body could be somewhere on NSW’s Central Coast.
Lynette’s family has pleaded for Dawson to ‘find it in himself’ to reveal the location of the mother-of-two’s body so they can properly lay her to rest after 40 years.
Investigators working the case have established two solid theories – the first was that Lynette was buried in the backyard of the family home the couple shared with their young daughters on Sydney’s northern beaches.
Police excavations of the yard over the years and ground penetrating technology failed to provide any significant clues, except for a tattered cardigan with what appeared to be knife marks that experts were unable to link to Lynette.
‘There was the (other) theory that he travelled to the Central Coast on January 9,’ a police source told The Daily Telegraph.
‘The challenge with that is that there is no physical evidence to point in any direction… there is a lot of regional bush area… there is no possible way to search it, it’s so vast.’
Prosecutors in the trial argued Dawson gave the couple’s two daughters to a friend to look after on January 9 to give him the opportunity to hide the body.
Justice Harrison said no evidence had been presented at trial to show Dawson’s whereabouts on that night.
With no mobile phones, CCTV or dashcam available 40 years ago to track his movements, investigators are now relying on someone with information to speak up.
Chris Dawson was taken to Silverwater prison on Wednesday, a day after being found guilty of murdering his first wife Lynette in 1982
How the Dawson verdict unfolded
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 the 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.
Chris Dawson arrives at the NSW Supreme Court on Tuesday before Justice Harrison convicted him of murdering his wife Lyn in 1982
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.’
Lyn’s brother Greg Simms and his wife Merilyn are seen outside court on Tuesday
Mr Simms said his sister had been ‘betrayed by the man she loved’
Dawson has been found guilty of murdering his wife Lyn
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’.
Justice Ian Harrison found it was beyond reasonable doubt that Lynette Dawson (above with Chris Dawson on her wedding day) did not leave her home in Bayview voluntarily
Countless photographers waited outside the court as the judge handed down his verdict
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.’
Lyn Dawson’s sister-in-law Merilyn and brother Greg Simms arrive in her favourite colour of pink at the court on Tuesday
Lynette Dawson (above with Shanelle) had found it hard to conceive and doted on her two daughters to Chris Dawson, who were four and two when she vanished in 1982
Dawson is seen outside the NSW Supreme Court before he was found guilty of murder
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’.
‘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’.
The accused’s older brother Peter in a scuffle in a media scrum outside the court as he arrives with Chris Dawson and lawyer Greg Walsh on Tuesday
‘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.
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 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.
Accused murderer Chris Dawson (above) at his Sunshine Coast home on Sunday before he flew to Sydney to be found guilty of the murder of his first wife, Lynette
The trial heard Chris Dawson was ‘besotted ‘ with JC, the schoolgirl babysitter who became his second wife and testified at his trial about his controlling behaviour
The family of Lynette Dawson has been asking for years about her disappearance and whatever the verdict on Tuesday, they still hold out hopes of her remains being found
Lynette Dawson with Chris in the early years of their romance when she had fallen in love with the football star and they planned a life together which would be cut short in 1982
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