Doubt cast on Chris Dawson’s student sex conviction in court

A “usually truthful” girl groomed by Chris Dawson as a teen is likely to be fallacious a couple of essential component holding up the wife-killer’s different felony conviction, judges have heard.

The 76-year-old has appealed a conviction associated to sexual abuse of a former pupil who later moved into his dwelling.

His complete sentence for that offence was principally subsumed into his full 24-year sentence for murdering his spouse Lynette Dawson in January 1982, including one yr to his non-parole interval.

Whereas he had admitted sexual activity with the teenager in Sydney’s japanese suburbs, he denied this occurred till after her seventeenth birthday – a vital component of the offence.

His problem of the carnal information verdict was heard within the NSW Courtroom of Legal Enchantment as we speak the place barrister Stephen Odgers SC mentioned there have been loads of questions surrounding proof from the complainant, recognized within the case as AB.

He argued there have been actual questions round precisely when Dawson and AB had their first kiss throughout driving classes, and when he and his twin brother Paul gave health courses to her and one other teenage lady.

AB contends the primary act of sexual activity befell after each the kiss and the health courses, anchoring it to the yr earlier than her seventeenth birthday.

However Odgers mentioned the courtroom ought to acquit Dawson if glad there have been sufficient questions across the timing of the primary act of sexual activity.

“Even when the choose appropriately finds she’s usually truthful, usually dependable, there nonetheless could also be causes for doubt,” Odgers advised the courtroom.

Dawson has additionally challenged the decision as unreasonable.

He silently watched the listening to from a small room at Silverwater jail in Sydney’s west, talking solely briefly to inform the courtroom that he was OK to proceed.

In the course of the District Courtroom trial in 2023, the courtroom was advised the then-PE trainer groomed AB throughout health courses and organised a tennis match so the lady might meet his spouse and begin babysitting.

The teenager began sleeping with Dawson and ultimately moved into his dwelling quickly after Lynette was murdered and he disposed of her physique, the NSW Supreme Courtroom discovered when he was convicted over the killing in 2022.

For the carnal information verdict, whereas Choose Sarah Huggett acknowledged discrepancies in AB’s proof, she nonetheless discovered the 76-year-old responsible.

Crown prosecutor Helen Roberts SC urged the appeals courtroom to uphold the choose’s findings.

She pointed to different “compelling” proof that confirmed Dawson was certainly engaged in sexual exercise with AB in 1980, versus simply exhibiting her romantic affection.

In a birthday card given to the lady on her seventeenth birthday in 1981, the trainer described her as “essentially the most lovely lady on this planet”.

“To my beautiful, lovely bub,” he wrote.

“Hoping as we speak is a really joyful one.”

Different conduct included threats made to a teenage boy who expressed curiosity in AB, standing between her legs as she sat on his desk at college, and attending an area pub to satisfy along with her and her buddies.

This confirmed there was a bodily relationship in 1980, Roberts mentioned.

By the top of 1980, Dawson mentioned he beloved AB and wished to marry her, the courtroom was advised.

Throughout health courses the next yr, there was “kissing and cuddling and canoodling” together with within the facility’s swimming pool, Roberts mentioned.

The appeals courtroom’s judgment can be delivered at a later date.

Dawson’s attraction of the homicide conviction was thrown out in June.

His 18-year non-parole interval for homicide expires in 2040.