The Teacher's Trial

Four decades after former star footballer and high school teacher Chris Dawson allegedly murdered his wife Lyn, a murder trial her family feared would never happen has begun. The prosecution revealed that a new witness - a former Newtown Jets team-mate of the accused wife killer - will allege Dawson asked him in 1975 to help 'get rid' of Lyn. Dawson strenuously denies wrongdoing.

And in the lead up to the trial for the most high pr...

Chris Dawson’s former babysitter “JC” gives evidence that he groomed her, then turned her into his “sex slave” and a substitute mother for his children after his wife Lyn’s sudden disappearance. Lyn’s friend and neighbour Julie Andrew and siblings Greg Simms and Pat Jenkins tell of the trauma of the past 40 years, as their nightmare is brought to life through diaries, letters and photograph...

It’s an intense and emotional week in court as Lyn’s workmates and friends tell of a steady deterioration of her marriage to Chris Dawson. Witnesses are tested on allegations of bruising on Lyn and violence and aggression in the home. The evidence takes us from the school grounds of Cromer High to seaside village South West Rocks, to the backdrop of a chart-topping song.

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The court hears Chris Dawson's story in his own words as video of his first and only police interview on the topic of his wife's disappearance is played in full. His brother, Peter Dawson, remembers the crucial weeks and months following Lynette Dawson's disappearance and a teenage co-worker of JC recounts a frightening encounter with Chris Dawson, who allegedly warned him to stay away from JC. And this decades-old cold case hits a...

The voices of Chris and Paul Dawson echo through the court once more as intercepted phone calls from the late '90s are played publicly for the first time. Members of the Dawson family, including twin brother Paul and sister-in-law Marilyn, recall the events leading up to and following Lynette Dawson’s disappearance decades earlier and mount a fierce defence of the accused.

The Crown bolsters evidence from former Dawson family...

The names and reputations of Sydney’s most notorious crime figures are connected to Chris Dawson’s murder trial, as the focus turns to the gangland milieu surrounding the Newtown Jets rugby league club. The crown’s criminally-connected witness Robert Silkman speaks of his friendship with heroin trafficker and Newtown teammate Paul Hayward, and his drinking buddy and brother-in-law, psychopathic contract killer Ned...

A retired cop makes an explosive revelation that an unverified and fleeting purported sighting of Lyn Dawson at a fruit barn closed down the first homicide investigation in the early 1990s. The court hears investigative files were left to decay in a damp storage facility, never to be found again. An author and confidante of family babysitter `JC’ speaks of her motivations for writing a book about her friend’s saga with ...

Hedley Thomas, the award-winning journalist behind The Teacher's Pet podcast, enters the witness box in the trial's eighth week. Thomas mounts a fiery defence of investigative journalism amid a fierce cross-examination by defence barrister Pauline David. Detective Damian Loone also returns to the witness box for a grilling over his investigative methods and integrity. The former cop stands firm under the onslaught, defending h...

Police taps on Chris Dawson’s phone in 2018 as episodes of The Teacher’s Pet were unfolding reveal him and his twin brother Paul raging over the former babysitter-cum-wife JC, as well as journalists, TV crews and homicide cop Damian Loone. In one intercept Chris discloses he was still hearing from Lyn some ‘six or eight weeks’ after she disappeared - although in 1982 he told police his contact with Lyn cease...

Obsessed with teenage babysitter JC, Christopher Dawson murdered his wife Lyn in terror of losing what he so deeply desired. That was the powerful thrust of a meticulous and forensic closing address, delivered over two days by Crown prosecutor Craig Everson SC. Everson said Dawson made four separate plans to escape his marriage before ultimately killing Lyn, disposing of her body and racing to South West Rocks to collect JC and ins...

Chris Dawson is a man of good character, badly let down by police and unfairly tainted over the disappearance of his wife: that's the essence of the Defence's closing address on behalf of the accused. Finally, the court got to hear Dawson's side of the story. Through barrister Pauline David, he admitted having behaved 'horribly' towards Lyn by beginning a relationship with babysitter JC, leaving his wife in such despair she walked ...

Sue Strath is that rare, loyal friend who never turns away, who never gives up. Her efforts to poke and prod police into action over the disappearance of Lyn Dawson makes Sue one of the few heroines of a tragic story. Sue kept agitating for 16 years, although she was sure that Lyn was dead. The facts and chronology of the case show that Sue's persistence caused the police investigation in the late 1990s which led to much ...

From bewildered to furious, Chris and Paul Dawson vent their true feelings in tapped phone calls over two decades, as the lingering mystery of Lyn’s disappearance draws the attention of police, journalists and the wider world. Retired detective inspector of homicide Gary Jubelin takes us inside the emotion and suspense of a murder trial, and defence lawyer Karen Espiner breaks down the tactical decisions and judicial process ...

We revisit the volatile decade that was the 1970s, Chris and Paul Dawson’s heyday. They were at the peak of their celebrity as well known sporting figures and male models, exploiting the novelty of being identical twins in everything they did. Many years later as police close in over Lyn’s suspected murder, phone-taps capture more conversations between the brothers and within the Dawson clan. And we take a look at the r...

Two coroners examined Lyn Dawson’s disappearance and recommended a ‘known person’ - her husband Chris - be charged with her murder. We delve into how the inquests unfolded, finding out what one of the coroners had to say when Chris, his twin brother Paul, and Paul’s wife Marilyn did not attend. And we explore the interaction between podcasting and the criminal justice system, talking to two women who turned ...

We finally get an answer to the question that's been lingering for weeks: when will Justice Ian Harrison return a verdict? We're also taking the opportunity to answer some of the fascinating and complex questions sent in by you, our listeners. And we meet a figure who's loomed over the trial of Christopher Michael Dawson: Helena Simms, the mother of Lynette Dawson, who never stopped looking for her beloved, lost daughter. 

For...

After 40 years, a verdict is just days away. As anticipation builds, we answer more of your questions: What happened to the dressmaker who Lyn talked to about her bruises and her “violent” husband Chris? Do inquest findings carry any weight in a criminal trial? What does reasonable doubt mean anyway?

We have a frank and honest discussion about how the language we use to talk about crime has evolved. And we hear from a w...