0:00

This

0:01

podcast contains allegations of

0:03

sexual and family violence. It

0:05

won't be suitable for everyone. You

0:07

can contact the National Sexual Assault, Domestic

0:10

and Family Violence Counselling Service

0:13

on 1800RESPECT. This

0:16

is episode four of The Teacher's Accuser.

0:19

It's brought to you by The Australian. Christopher

0:26

Michael Dawson, you did murder Lynette

0:28

Dawson. It's in the making.

0:31

Chris Dawson. Chris Dawson. Chris Dawson.

0:33

Chris Dawson found guilty of murdering

0:35

wife Lynette at Bayview 40 years ago. A

0:39

four decade campaign for justice has

0:41

come to an extraordinary end. I

0:43

find you guilty. The former school

0:45

teacher is destined to die behind

0:48

bars. Mr Dawson, I sentence

0:50

you to imprisonment for 24 years. My

0:54

name is Hedley

0:55

Thomas and I'm a journalist with a particular

0:57

interest in podcast investigations

1:00

into the murders of women in Australia. Last

1:03

year Christopher Michael Dawson was convicted

1:05

of the 1982 murder of his wife Lynette. After

1:10

four decades of freedom, Dawson

1:12

is now serving a 24 year

1:14

sentence. It's justice at long

1:16

last for his terrible crime. And

1:19

now Dawson faces allegations

1:21

that he groomed and sexually assaulted

1:24

a former female

1:25

student at a Northern Beaches high school

1:27

where he taught in the early 1980s. The

1:30

trial will play out in the New South Wales

1:33

District Court in Sydney. You

1:35

can follow the case at the newspaper's

1:37

digital site and at theteachersaccuser.com.au.

1:45

I'm

1:46

Claire Harvey, Editorial Director at

1:48

The Australian and host of our daily news podcast,

1:51

The Front. The carnal knowledge trial

1:53

of Christopher Michael Dawson has officially

1:56

come to a close.

1:57

Just as he did in

1:59

his murder trial. Dawson exercised

2:01

his right to silence. He did

2:03

not give evidence in his own defence. Judge

2:06

Sarah Huggett has now retired to

2:08

consider her verdict, which she'll deliver

2:10

on June 28. Later

2:13

in this episode of The Teacher's Accuser, Headley

2:15

Thomas, David Murray, Matthew Condon and I

2:17

will delve into the closing submissions

2:20

made by prosecutor Emma Blizzard and

2:22

public defender Claire Worsley. Up

2:25

first, we're taking a closer look at

2:27

the evidence given by the final witnesses

2:28

called by the Crown.

2:33

On day six of the trial, we heard from Philip

2:36

Webster. He's given us permission

2:38

to use his name and he was at Cromer

2:40

High

2:40

School from year seven when he started

2:42

in 1978. That meant he was two years

2:45

below AB at school and

2:48

he was asked about what he observed around

2:50

the playground in those years at Cromer

2:52

High. Let's hear some of

2:54

what Phil Webster told the court.

2:57

He was being questioned by the Crown prosecutor,

2:59

Emma Blizzard.

3:00

These are their words, but not their voices.

3:04

In terms of playground duty, what

3:06

did you see? She was like his sidekick.

3:09

It was like she was doing playground duty with him,

3:11

which was unusual because teachers mostly did

3:13

playground duty on their own. Occasionally,

3:16

a student might go up and say hello or

3:18

speak, but this was different.

3:20

This was like

3:21

she was his sidekick. And

3:23

in terms of the things that you saw and the things

3:25

you heard, what makes you say she was like his

3:28

sidekick? Just the constant physical closeness.

3:31

Like I said, it was

3:32

unusual for a student to be with a teacher

3:34

for that amount of time during a 20 to 30

3:36

minute playground duty.

3:38

And you just used the words constant physical

3:40

closeness. Can you describe what you saw that

3:43

makes you say that? Like I said, it

3:45

was like she was doing duty with him. They

3:47

were both doing playground duty.

3:49

They were together. I

3:52

mean, this is something you would remember decades

3:54

later because Christopher

3:57

Dawson himself, the physical education

3:59

teacher, was in his own right, a

4:02

celebrity of sorts. He was a rugby

4:04

league star, incredibly

4:06

good looking and attractive.

4:08

And to see

4:10

this Adonis striding through the

4:12

playground on playground duty with

4:14

this girl,

4:15

it's an indelible memory. It's clearly a burr

4:18

on his memory from that period. And

4:20

you get the impression witnesses like Phil

4:23

Webster have been waiting a long time

4:25

to tell the truth of what

4:27

happened in a courtroom. And I reckon

4:29

the only thing he might have wanted after that was

4:32

to have had longer in the witness box.

4:34

I've never really understood why the

4:37

students, former

4:39

students who came forward in 2018 were

4:41

all in years below AB's year at Cromer High.

4:48

Why weren't her peers, her

4:51

school friends from the same year

4:54

among the whistleblowers when the teacher's

4:56

pet began unfolding?

4:58

It's a bit of a mystery to me. I'm aware of

5:00

tensions that brewed as these

5:03

younger students came forward

5:05

to try to tell what had

5:08

happened,

5:08

to try to get justice for

5:11

AB. And some of the students

5:13

who were in the same year as AB and

5:16

who had stayed silent, were not

5:18

happy about this and tried to

5:20

smother some of what was being said.

5:23

I think older students loom

5:25

very large in the playground, don't they? I

5:27

remember being on my first day of year seven

5:29

and seeing the year 12 girls with hair piled

5:32

up on top of their heads and their

5:34

glamorous uniforms and just thinking that they were

5:36

goddesses. Everything they

5:38

did stuck in my memory.

5:40

The other thing is about younger years at Cromer

5:42

High and other schools is that perhaps the

5:46

brilliance of the Dorsons didn't shine on those

5:48

years as much as they did on AB's

5:50

year group. They weren't under the spell

5:53

of the handsome Dawson twins

5:56

quite so much.

5:57

There's something very significant about the Covid-19 era. that

6:00

a student is in. We all know that

6:02

you can have a good year or a bad year,

6:05

a year where there are lots of bullies, or a year where people

6:07

are nice and smart.

6:09

The internal dynamics of a year group

6:11

at school are often very

6:13

different. I mean, the answer may already

6:16

have been given in evidence that we've heard, and that is

6:18

that she drifted away from the tight

6:20

cohort

6:21

when she came under the spell, if you like,

6:24

of Christopher Dawson and drifted

6:26

into his office and was with him during

6:28

those recess hours to the point

6:30

where some of the cohort were banging on the

6:32

staff room door saying, A,

6:34

B, come out, come out. It may have

6:36

been that she actually aggravated

6:39

her cohort of friends to the point where they felt

6:41

abandoned.

6:42

Headley, you interviewed Philip Webster in your initial

6:44

investigation. That's right, Claire. And

6:46

once again, Phil Webster was

6:49

someone who became known to me as a result

6:51

of the incredible work of Robin

6:54

Wheeler. Robin had been the vice

6:56

captain at Cromer High School, and she's

6:58

the woman that you heard from in the

7:00

first episode of The Teacher's Accuser. She's

7:03

in the second episode of the original

7:05

The Teacher's Pet because she came forward

7:08

after this podcast investigation

7:10

started in 2018, and she saw

7:12

the podcast as an opportunity to finally

7:15

rip

7:15

the covers from this sordid story

7:18

of underage sex with

7:21

teachers,

7:22

power ups by officials, the

7:24

blind eye turned by teachers

7:26

and others for so many years, and

7:29

she put out feelers to others who got

7:31

in touch with her and then got in touch with me.

7:33

Phil was one of those. We spoke

7:35

on the phone initially. I remember I

7:38

was standing on the deck of my house in Brookfield

7:40

when he contacted me. He was so

7:43

candid and open. His memories were very

7:45

fresh. He was a senior school teacher

7:47

himself, and it was obvious

7:49

that he had been thinking about these things

7:52

for many years in the context

7:54

of his duty of care to students.

7:57

We've stayed in touch over the years. In fact, we

7:59

caught up. in December after

8:02

Chris Dawson had been sentenced to

8:04

life imprisonment we had a get-together barbecue

8:07

at his house on the Northern Beaches with

8:09

his amazing wife Abby

8:12

and family and a number of other students

8:14

who I think we will have lifetime

8:17

friendships with.

8:19

Let's hear some of what former Cromer

8:21

High School students Phil Webster and Robin

8:23

Wheeler told Headley during his research

8:25

for the teacher's pet in 2018.

8:36

I idolised Chris Dawson. My

8:39

God I went to watching place football. I went

8:41

down to Brookville and watched him. I saw him on Monday

8:43

morning. Sir, sir, I watch you play and I idolised

8:46

Batman. I just want to see him

8:48

brought to justice. Phil's back

8:50

in touch with the school's former vice-captain

8:53

Robin Wheeler and many other friends

8:55

from Cromer High.

8:57

Some of the students now talk about turning

8:59

the tables on the teachers whose actions

9:02

have led to girls having breakdowns years

9:04

later. The teachers are

9:06

in their 60s now and they're worrying

9:08

about where this is all going. And I

9:11

think they're terrified of hiding under rocks.

9:14

Robin's revelations suddenly lifted the

9:16

lid on a Pandora's box because

9:18

since many of Cromer High students from those

9:21

years heard their former vice-captains disclosures.

9:24

They've been rallying around, gathering

9:26

details and seeking to get the school's

9:28

dirty secrets out once and for

9:31

all. She and the other

9:33

students are reconnecting with each other on Facebook

9:36

and Cromer High websites.

9:38

They are linking the culture and conduct

9:40

at the school.

9:41

The teachers sharing pot and alcohol

9:43

with students.

9:45

The reckless sex with schoolgirls on

9:47

the gym mats in the storeroom.

9:49

The obsession of Chris with

9:52

**** and then Lynn Dawson suddenly

9:54

vanishing. They are linking it all and

9:57

there were consequences. A probable

9:59

murder. We didn't really have anyone looking

10:02

after us. There was no duty of court. Just

10:04

a free-for-all. The result

10:06

of that was a person who's dead

10:09

and two little girls grew up without

10:11

their mother. As a result of

10:13

that, you know, like that behavior

10:15

that was just allowed.

10:18

Now we've all got kids. It's

10:20

like, whoa, I can't even imagine my

10:23

child going to a school like that.

10:25

Here's Phil Webster again.

10:27

The most important thing is the murder of Lynne,

10:29

who I never met, in

10:32

the context of a

10:34

culture that said it's okay to

10:37

screw the kids in the school. And

10:39

the urges that they had,

10:41

the lust that they had, they couldn't control.

10:43

They're

10:44

teachers. They're teachers. That

10:46

was their little fringe benefit.

10:48

It was a fringe benefit of being a schoolteacher.

10:51

They were influenced by their own

10:54

sense of entitlement and

10:56

their own sense of hedonism that, hey,

10:59

we've got young girls on tap here. We're

11:01

young. We're in a really good place,

11:04

northern beaches of Sydney, well-to-do area, beaches

11:07

very close by. Lots of

11:09

girls walking around in bikinis. It

11:14

was a sex haven for those guys.

11:16

For years, Phil has stayed in touch with one of

11:18

the accused teachers.

11:21

Since Robin's disclosures began snowballing,

11:23

this teacher is asking him, what should

11:25

I do? Phil's

11:26

friends and other teachers

11:29

are in panic mode. Shitting

11:31

themselves. They knew what they

11:33

were doing was wrong. He's worried

11:35

about his boss finding out at high school.

11:38

He's a grandfather now.

11:40

I asked Phil if he would help those girls

11:43

who had gone to Cromer. If they

11:45

asked him to talk to police or other investigators.

11:48

Yes, I would. For sure I would.

11:50

Phil regrets his easy acceptance

11:52

of the teacher's conduct at the time.

11:54

I mean, I never said anything to

11:56

them. I never stood up for myself

11:58

and said, what you're doing is wrong. the role models

12:01

I had

12:02

were fucking some of the girls in

12:04

my year group. So there you

12:06

go. That's my experience

12:09

of growing up at Chroma High.

12:10

It wasn't just Chroma High. It's not fair

12:12

for Chroma High to cop this. It was

12:15

a Northern Beaches thing.

12:17

And you know what

12:18

said to me, you didn't tell

12:20

me you had the 30-year reunion. Man, I would have

12:22

loved to have come to that. And I don't have

12:24

the guts to say to me, mate, your name is

12:26

Mudd at the reunions, mate.

12:29

You were screwing some of the girls in our

12:31

year group.

12:33

Why would you think I would ask

12:34

you to my 30-year reunion? You're not welcome.

12:37

I mean people who do this are strange.

12:39

I mean people that do these sorts of things

12:41

can't be normal. People that think it's okay

12:45

to climb through their year 11 students

12:47

window and fuck them on

12:49

a Friday night and then teach

12:51

them on the Monday aren't

12:53

normal. It can't

12:55

be. Psychological

12:58

damage was those men caused, they're

13:00

only after their own sexual

13:02

conquests and they should

13:04

have known and yet they gave no regard

13:07

for the welfare of those girls.

13:10

And it's fascinating now to hear Phil's

13:12

words from back

13:14

in 2018. He's literally predicting

13:17

some of what's unfolded.

13:19

We didn't use this line in the original

13:22

The Teacher's Pet but I just wanted to share it

13:25

for this episode. Okay,

13:27

I love the work

13:29

you're doing and I've got a really

13:31

strong gut feeling that there's going to be a news story

13:33

one day where he's arrested and taken into court.

13:36

And what's also interesting is Phil's

13:39

explanation back then, which

13:41

we think makes a lot of sense,

13:44

that the teachers in the early 1980s

13:47

had interpreted the law

13:49

incorrectly.

13:51

They wrongly believe that the age of consent

13:54

was 16 but of course

13:56

when it's a teacher and

13:59

student situation, When the age of consent is 17,

14:02

it's a crucial difference and it's why

14:04

Chris Dawson is facing

14:06

this carnal knowledge trial now.

14:11

I mean, it was almost like I advertised that

14:13

it was that explicit

14:16

as a relationship just in the playground

14:18

at recess and lunch.

14:20

Why do you think Phil, that the other

14:22

teachers didn't do anything?

14:26

As Robin said, that was the culture

14:28

at the time. I can actually say

14:30

verified that one of the teachers who

14:32

was having an affair basically stated, mate, they're 16. Not

14:35

illegal. So

14:38

the fact that they knew it shouldn't have been happening because

14:40

it was teacher student was

14:42

really nullified by the fact that they were legal

14:44

and they were consenting. The way they condoned

14:47

it was, they're 16. They're old enough. That's

14:49

it. Therefore, we can

14:51

do what we're doing. In fact, I'm

14:53

still friends with one of them on Facebook who

14:56

I've had to email last night and say, mate, I

14:58

might be going on record. I could name

15:00

him. I know I can consider what Robin

15:03

was talking about about climbing through windows. One

15:06

of the victims came and confided in me when

15:08

she was sleeping with him and came and climbed through my

15:10

window as a way of comforting

15:13

herself because I think she was being chased by him.

15:15

My socialization as a

15:17

teenage boy was women

15:20

are objects. You just fuck as

15:22

many as you can. You get the best ones you can.

15:24

You go after them and you do what you can. And

15:27

that's what I saw from

15:29

my male PE teachers and math teachers

15:32

and geography teachers. And

15:34

they weren't really trying hard to cover

15:36

it up.

15:39

There's little doubt in my mind that we

15:41

would not be seeing these criminal

15:44

proceedings now and potentially

15:46

not even the murder trial last year if it

15:49

were not for the bravery and guts of people

15:51

like Robin Wheeler,

15:53

Phil Webster, Michelle Walsh,

15:55

Linda McCarthy,

15:57

and Bev McNally, all of

15:59

whom came forward, all of whom have

16:01

been very happy for their names

16:04

to be published, for their utterances

16:06

to be on the record in these

16:08

podcasts and in our reporting and

16:11

in their statements to police.

16:13

Clare Wozli didn't particularly seem to be enjoying

16:15

Philip Webster's evidence and it was over very

16:17

quickly. She didn't have any questions. She made

16:19

a couple of objections to things that Emma

16:21

Blizzard tried to ask

16:24

Phil Webster and Phil

16:26

Webster was quickly on his way back out the

16:28

courtroom. The next witness

16:30

was someone who we can't name because she

16:32

was a child at the time of these events.

16:35

She started in year seven at Chroma High in 1978 and

16:37

she left the school at the end of October 1982.

16:43

She's one of those people whose whole

16:46

school life and childhood in this trial

16:48

is being distilled to just one snapshot,

16:50

one moment. She

16:52

told the court she had been having a lot of dental

16:54

work done in the year that she was in year

16:57

nine and there was a day when she

16:59

had to go into Mr Dawson's office

17:01

and give him a note because she was going to miss a class.

17:04

Let's hear what she told the court. These

17:06

are her words but not her voice. I

17:10

knocked. The door was a bit of ajar. I

17:13

went in, Aby was sitting on the desk

17:15

and Chris Dawson was standing between her legs.

17:19

He asked me, what do you want? And

17:21

I said, I've got a note for sport and

17:23

just threw it on the desk and left. This

17:26

witness was interesting. I watched

17:29

her walk into the court and she seemed very sweet

17:31

and innocent and you could almost squint and

17:33

see what she would have looked like in the class photographs.

17:36

That's not a criticism of her, of course, but

17:38

she seemed very candid and very

17:40

honest in the very brief time she

17:42

was in the witness box. But yes, here was

17:44

a moment burnt in her memory

17:47

as it would be. Now, there

17:49

was a lot of debate and questioning

17:51

about the distance that

17:53

Dawson was from Aby and

17:56

there was some arming and aring and some hand

17:59

gesticula.

17:59

legislation, and they worked out that from

18:02

her memory, Mr Dawson was

18:04

about 20 centimetres away

18:07

from the body of AB. And

18:10

her importance to this trial is she said her dental

18:12

work was in 1980. That's the year this

18:15

trial is all about. It was interesting

18:17

what was missing from her description too. She

18:20

didn't describe them leaping apart

18:22

or Chris Dawson immediately busying himself

18:24

with some papers on the desk and pretending that they were

18:26

doing something else. From her description,

18:29

they just stood there.

18:30

This is what's come up time and time

18:32

again from these flashpoint memories

18:35

from these schoolyard witnesses. That

18:38

this activity was done without a single

18:40

care for impropriety.

18:43

We have Dawson with this

18:45

child AB in the schoolyard. As

18:48

you said, we have no indication of a sort

18:50

of embarrassed shock horror that gigs

18:52

up as the student who went into the

18:55

office and found Dawson standing

18:57

between AB's legs said of

18:59

these observations, they weren't hidden.

19:02

Next up was another former schoolgirl witness.

19:04

She again was younger than AB and

19:07

she left

19:07

the school in 1980, which

19:10

is why her recollections are significant

19:12

of what she saw in the playground.

19:15

She described seeing AB with Chris

19:17

Dawson not far from the

19:18

entrance to the basketball stadium near

19:20

a car park. AB was sitting

19:23

on a brick wall and Chris Dawson was standing

19:25

between her legs.

19:27

This witness had given this evidence quite clearly

19:29

in a statement, Dave, but she struggled

19:31

to describe in court exactly

19:34

how they were positioned. But

19:36

what she was clear on was that this was a personal

19:38

closeness and intimacy is how she described

19:41

it. She was trying to tell the court, well,

19:44

I might not be able to give you centimetres,

19:46

but look, they were close. So he was standing between

19:48

her legs, which echoed

19:50

the evidence of the earlier witness only

19:52

this time it was out in public in the middle

19:55

of the school. These were not rich pickings

19:57

for Claire Worsley. Claire Worsley made a valiant

19:59

attempt. to test this woman's memory

20:02

of what she'd seen and the small inconsistencies

20:04

in the version she gave police in her statement

20:06

and that she was now giving the court. Do

20:10

you agree that when you gave that statement

20:12

to the police on your birthday, that

20:14

you didn't tell the police that you saw them touching

20:16

each other?

20:17

No, I didn't say anything. We didn't

20:19

get into that kind of detail. It was

20:21

just that they were in close proximity.

20:24

What I'm going to suggest to you, and you can agree or disagree

20:26

with that, is that the reason you didn't get

20:29

into that kind of detail is because you

20:31

did not see the accused. Sorry, Mr

20:33

Dawson and A.B. touching each other.

20:36

Do you agree or disagree with that?

20:39

No, I believe I saw that from my memory.

20:41

That's something you're remembering now in court?

20:44

I remember it because at the time it shocked me, that's

20:46

all. So it was like something that you probably

20:48

don't really want to remember.

20:51

As you mentioned, Claire,

20:53

she left that school in 1980 when A.B. was in year 11 when

20:55

this offence

20:58

is said to have occurred. She could not have witnessed

21:00

it in year 12, which is when the defence

21:03

is suggesting all of these things happen. So

21:05

it's just another layer of corroboration

21:08

for A.B.'s evidence.

21:14

We'll be back in just a moment.

21:26

Welcome back to episode four of The Teacher's

21:28

Accuser. On day seven

21:30

of the trial, we were taking to a sunny

21:33

Saturday morning in the basement car

21:35

park of Coles D.Y. where

21:38

a young man who we can't name

21:40

was working. At that time,

21:42

A.B. was working in the deli along

21:45

with one of her sisters at Coles. And Matt, this witness

21:47

described Coles D.Y. as

21:49

the place you really wanted to be in 1980.

21:52

Yeah, he described how he basically

21:54

couldn't wait to get to work. I mean, you can imagine these

21:56

teenagers, they're all working together. There's a

21:58

ton of them. He'd said there were many, many.

21:59

many attractive young ladies

22:02

that were working there and it sounds like they

22:04

were losing sleep to get back to Coles. So

22:06

you can sort of understand that testronic

22:09

teenage boys entree into

22:12

a broader world here via Coles.

22:14

These kids were packing people's groceries

22:16

into bags. They were wheeling trolleys down to

22:18

the car park. They were collecting the trolleys. Coles

22:21

was flush with employees back in 1980, wasn't it?

22:23

It sounds like they would have paid to

22:26

do the job themselves. It was so much fun.

22:29

So he was taken to his recollections

22:31

of AB. He described her as a

22:34

very attractive young woman and said that

22:36

he probably asked her out.

22:39

I probably asked could we meet

22:41

at the disco. She went to Cramer

22:44

High and every week on a Saturday they

22:46

had a disco, a choleraude plateau. It

22:48

was a very big social outing and we'd go

22:50

to the disco and dance the Nutbush city

22:52

limits in our lumber jackets.

22:55

I probably would have said, let's

22:57

see a movie or see you at the disco

23:00

or something like that. Matt

23:03

we've been immersed in some pretty dark

23:05

evidence and suddenly we're hearing about a

23:08

culture where there was a Saturday night disco

23:10

run by the parents. I don't know whether

23:12

this young man was just a little bit more innocent

23:15

or whether actually this world

23:17

was a little bit simpler and more innocent

23:19

than we might have thought.

23:21

I think it's probably a combination of both.

23:23

These were 15, 16 year olds. So they're not in

23:26

club land yet. They're not old enough. They're

23:28

on the brink of that, but they're teenagers on training

23:30

wheels. And the exciting activity

23:33

for a weekend was to go to the parents

23:35

run disc attack

23:37

at Choleraude plateau. His

23:39

joyful innocence was genuine

23:41

and I think his reflection of the time was probably

23:44

accurate. He might be challenging you for

23:46

the Miles Franklin award at some point, Matt. His

23:48

description of being in that car park underneath

23:50

Coles was really literally, it

23:53

was quite noir. Actually, there were shafts

23:56

of sunlight coming through slits in the bricks.

23:58

We had shadows.

23:59

at all, so he may indeed be a contender.

24:02

The

24:04

man I now know as Mr

24:06

Dawson came out from the shadows.

24:09

There was light streaming in.

24:11

There are slits in the wall that led in the sunlight.

24:14

He said, hey you, all words

24:16

to that effect. I looked and

24:19

he approached me. He was pushing

24:21

my chest, not really aggressively,

24:24

more in just a threatening way, I guess

24:26

you could say.

24:28

Then he backed me up against the wall, my

24:31

chest or lower throat. He was pushing

24:33

and holding me. He was a very

24:35

large man. Both the Dawson

24:38

brothers looked like chesty bonds, we would

24:40

have said then. Very muscular, blonde,

24:43

played for Newtown.

24:44

And it took a minute to clock who it was,

24:47

because I'd never met him before.

24:49

And then he said words to the effect of, stay

24:52

away from her, don't go near her.

24:54

I was completely perplexed about what

24:57

was going on and probably pretty

24:59

scared. I said, who? He

25:03

said, AB. And

25:05

all the pieces fell together and

25:07

that was the end of the interaction. He

25:09

must have moved away and I got the trolleys

25:11

and hightailed it back up the ramp.

25:15

This was familiar evidence to us because

25:18

he had given the same evidence to

25:20

Chris Dawson's murder trial last year.

25:22

Claire Wasley was focusing on what

25:25

he had said to his

25:27

co-worker, AB, when they were working

25:30

side by side at Coles.

25:32

Claire Wasley was suggesting

25:34

that he was essentially hassling

25:36

her, harassing her, and that Chris Dawson

25:39

came in to sort this situation

25:41

out where she was being bothered by this young school

25:44

boy.

25:44

This is harking back to something we discussed previously,

25:47

Matt, which is Chris Dawson's obviously self-perception

25:50

as the white knight who was doing

25:52

AB a favour, who was rescuing

25:54

her from this pesky trolley boy.

25:57

The cross-examination to me was curious

25:59

in that. And Claire Wozli was trying

26:02

to push

26:03

the witness, the trolley boy, and saying

26:05

to him, you asked her out more than once, more than

26:07

twice, implying that he was a pest

26:10

and that he had what was coming to him.

26:12

I mean, it was interesting that the blame was shifted back

26:15

on this young teenager who was extraordinary.

26:18

And then his recollection of the confrontation

26:21

in the car park, it made me stop

26:23

cold

26:24

and think, what is going on here? Who

26:27

is a man in his early 30s who

26:29

is threatening a teenage boy

26:32

over the affections

26:34

of a teenage girl? What

26:37

man in his 30s, let alone a man married

26:39

with little children, does that?

26:41

What mindset is that for that to happen?

26:43

There was no denial that it happened. It

26:46

was simply trying to cast the trolley boy

26:48

as, in fact, the pest and the centre of the problem.

26:50

And especially in those days

26:53

when to be in your early 30s was a

26:55

lot older than to be in your early 30s now.

26:58

30-odd-year-old people these

26:59

days generally haven't really even moved out of

27:01

home, especially in Sydney. But in

27:03

those days, you were very much an established

27:06

man at 32. He

27:08

describes Chris Dawson as being this giant,

27:11

this huge football player. He knew that he

27:13

was a professional football player. And

27:15

here he was, getting fingers

27:17

pointed in his chest or at his throat by

27:20

this man that was obviously much bigger than

27:22

him. There's

27:23

something slightly sinister about it too,

27:25

isn't there? If you were the better

27:27

romantic partner, the one who could offer

27:30

safety and stability, you wouldn't need to be fending

27:32

anybody else off. That's the action

27:34

of somebody

27:35

who perhaps is a bit insecure.

27:37

A.B. says that this was a teenager at

27:39

the time who used to be very

27:42

nice to her. He used to call her Sunshine.

27:44

This wasn't a guy who was harassing her.

27:47

Although when he was asked at the trial whether he had

27:49

a nickname for her, he said no, not that he

27:51

could recall. On day seven

27:53

of the trial, we heard from a lady named Lee

27:56

Maloney. She came into the witness box in person

27:58

and it was clear from the beginning that she was

27:59

meaning that she was older than AB and

28:02

her school friends because the judge asked the Crown

28:04

if the restrictions on reporting her

28:06

name would exist. Emma Blisade

28:08

replied, no, this lady can be named because

28:11

she was not a child at the time of these alleged

28:13

events. It emerged that Lee Maloney

28:15

was a young mum living in the Linfield

28:18

area when she noticed a sign

28:20

on the fence of Linfield Demonstration

28:22

School for fitness classes. She

28:24

signed up and found that they were being taught

28:27

by these twin brothers, Paul and Chris

28:29

Dawson.

28:30

This was a fitness class that was primarily for

28:32

young mums like her. But we got this fascinating

28:35

evidence from Lee Maloney about these

28:37

two schoolgirls who were sitting at the back

28:39

of the school hall where these fitness classes were

28:41

held.

28:42

This is some of what Lee Maloney told the court.

28:45

These are her words, but not her voice.

28:49

What do you recall of the two young ladies present at

28:51

the fitness classes? Just that they were

28:53

gorgeous, pretty young things and

28:55

that they'd sit there.

28:57

They looked to have a friendship of sorts and

28:59

they would be chatting between the two of them and having

29:01

a bit of a giggle, which I would have assumed

29:03

was giggling at us much older birds doing

29:06

our exercises and they were just having

29:08

a good time.

29:09

Lee Maloney was asked

29:11

about her memories of these fitness classes and

29:14

of ultimately getting in the pool with

29:16

the Dawson brothers and the schoolgirls

29:18

who they were with.

29:20

Interestingly, when asked about this moment,

29:22

C.D. had rejected the idea that

29:25

anybody else was ever in the pool with

29:27

her and A.B. and the Dawson twins.

29:30

Lee Maloney did recall being in the pool,

29:32

but just once. It was late at night

29:34

and it was dark.

29:37

They

29:37

ran during the school term and a number

29:39

of the women all knew each other at the time. And

29:42

as the weather warmed up, particularly in December,

29:45

just before we were breaking up for the year,

29:47

one time we went and jumped in

29:49

the pool. We didn't jump in. We

29:52

had a swim in the pool after a class, about

29:54

three or four of us. And you just used

29:57

the word one time. The using of the

29:59

pool after the fitness class. to your memory,

30:01

is that something you only recall doing once?

30:04

I only did it once.

30:07

The public defender, Claire Wozli, was clearly

30:09

trying to discredit the pool evidence that

30:11

we'd heard previously in the trial about the

30:14

twins being naked in the pool with these

30:16

two young schoolgirls. However,

30:18

Lee Maloney's evidence was that she was

30:20

only in there on that one occasion, whereas

30:22

the previous evidence was that there were

30:25

quite a number of these swims, not just one.

30:27

Some of the Crown witnesses are not appearing

30:29

in person, but are having their statements read into

30:31

the evidence by Emma Blizzard. One

30:34

of those was someone who's been given the pseudonym

30:36

EF, a student who

30:39

was one year below AB in terms

30:41

of age. She was in year

30:43

nine at Forest High in 1979. In

30:47

the statement, which Emma Blizzard read to the court,

30:50

EF said she was 14 years old and Paul

30:52

Dawson was her teacher in health studies

30:54

at Forest High.

30:56

Here's part of EF's statement, as

30:58

it was read to the court by Emma Blizzard.

31:26

This witness, EF, is the person who we've referred to previously

31:28

as Alice.

31:31

Headily

31:36

referred to her story in The Teacher's

31:39

Pet, but of course in these proceedings we're only

31:41

hearing this tiny fragment, this day

31:44

when she, Paul Dawson, Chris Dawson

31:46

and AB were down at

31:48

Shelley Beach.

31:49

I would defy anybody

31:52

who reads the statement

31:54

of the person that I referred to as

31:57

Alice in The Teacher's Pet and

31:59

not come away. feeling utterly disgusted

32:02

and angry and distressed

32:04

over the conduct allegedly of Paul

32:07

Dawson with several other

32:09

teachers of Forest High in

32:12

relation to this girl who

32:14

was not even 16

32:16

when these incidents that she

32:19

described in her very measured

32:22

methodical lengthy statement

32:24

given to police in 1998. In my view there is no

32:27

doubt that

32:29

if Alice wanted to make a formal complaint

32:32

against Paul Dawson he would be

32:34

in the dock now, he would be facing

32:37

several years of imprisonment along

32:39

with potentially a number of

32:41

other teachers of Forest High. We

32:44

do not know why that hasn't occurred

32:46

it may be that the person

32:49

now a woman in her late 50s just

32:52

does not want to have the stress

32:55

the anxiety and the

32:57

potential mental health issues that

32:59

could arise by going back over

33:02

what was allegedly occurring.

33:04

Her

33:04

detailed account given

33:06

in 1998 crystallized for me when I read it for the

33:12

first time in 2001 and then again when the teachers pet

33:15

podcast investigation

33:19

was underway in late 2017

33:21

it crystallized what seemed

33:24

to me perfect evidence of

33:26

a sex ring of high

33:29

school teachers

33:30

with the most predatory behaviors

33:33

towards schoolgirls many

33:35

of whom were vulnerable

33:37

they were underage it was unlawful

33:40

and they acted like animals.

33:42

It was interesting to me that this was one of the witnesses

33:45

that

33:45

was not called to give evidence in person

33:48

Emma Blisard the prosecutor read

33:51

out this little bit of evidence from this witness

33:53

but this must have been something that the

33:55

defense agreed to not have this witness

33:57

here in person at the trial.

33:59

perhaps to limit the amount

34:02

of evidence that she would have given about

34:04

her knowledge of Chris and Paul Dawson's activities.

34:07

And perhaps because they wanted to expedite

34:09

this trial, the same thing happened with

34:11

Robin Wheeler. She was on

34:13

the witness list to give evidence, but then

34:15

Emma Blizzard instead read

34:18

out part of her statement that she had made

34:20

to police.

34:21

Here's some of her words read to the court by

34:23

Emma Blizzard.

34:26

When I was in year nine in 1980, I saw

34:28

another student with a teacher. This student was

34:30

in year 11. I recall I would see

34:33

A.B. in Chris Dawson's office with him when

34:35

I would go to the office about basketball related issues. I

34:38

never saw them engaged in any acts of intimacy. I

34:41

wasn't friends with A.B. but I knew of her through

34:43

that group of older schoolgirls.

34:47

It is a bit of a pity that Robin Wheeler

34:49

didn't give evidence in person at this

34:51

trial. As I've said, she is a real

34:54

heroine of this saga. She's

34:56

very credible. We

34:58

can only speculate that the prosecution

35:01

ended up not calling her in person because

35:03

they believe they already have such

35:06

a strong case that she's not needed.

35:08

A statement by Damian Loon was

35:10

also entered into evidence by the prosecutor.

35:13

He was the detective who spent many years

35:16

looking at Chris Dawson in

35:18

the context of the disappearance

35:20

of his first wife Lynette. Of course,

35:22

we know he was later convicted of Lynette's

35:24

murder. But Damian was really

35:26

the detective who pursued this

35:29

most strongly

35:30

in the face of what can only be described

35:32

as indifference from many

35:34

others in the police service. In

35:37

this trial, the written statement of Damian Loon

35:39

was not really substantive

35:42

about this particular matter. It was directed

35:44

at placing A.B.'s evidence

35:46

in the timeline of events, of

35:48

course, which we know is so critical

35:50

for this trial. One

35:52

of the other statements the Crown handed up on day

35:54

seven was the statement of a

35:56

woman we can only call G.H.

35:58

She was the detective. younger

36:00

sister of the woman codenamed AB,

36:03

the complainant in this matter. Dave,

36:05

what was the tenor of this younger

36:08

sister statement? Dave

36:09

It was quite brief.

36:11

She described how AB had really

36:14

kept her in the dark about a lot of things, hadn't

36:16

talked to her very much about

36:18

what was going on with Chris Dawson at the time.

36:21

But she did remember that Chris Dawson,

36:23

the teacher, had favoured her sister. And

36:26

one of the things that she did remember was that Dawson

36:28

used to give the sisters lifts. At the time,

36:31

she didn't think that was particularly unusual.

36:33

It was quite notable that AB sisters

36:35

didn't give evidence in this trial. We had been

36:38

expecting them to. They were on the witness

36:40

list,

36:41

but instead we got this kind of truncated

36:44

version which reduced the length of this trial.

36:46

The judge was given only the small portions

36:48

of the evidence that the prosecution believed

36:51

was relevant to this particular trial. Matt,

36:53

the Crown then called the very last witness

36:56

to give evidence live in this trial,

36:58

and that was Detective Sergeant Laura

37:00

B. Croft, the commanding officer

37:02

of Strike Force Southwood, which

37:04

of course was created after the teacher's

37:06

pet raised allegations about teachers'

37:09

misconduct at high schools on

37:11

the Northern Beaches in the late 70s

37:13

and 1980s. What were your

37:15

impressions of Laura B. Croft?

37:17

Everything I expected from an officious,

37:20

intelligent woman in charge

37:23

of a very important and difficult

37:25

branch of the police force. She was no

37:27

nonsense. Her memory was frighteningly

37:30

accurate. Her language

37:32

was precise.

37:34

Every word that she uttered I trusted

37:36

intrinsically.

37:37

Dave Laura B. Croft was taken through this

37:40

sequence of events and what Strike Force

37:42

Southwood did in relation to this matter.

37:45

We learned something new about the way

37:47

AB's allegations came out

37:50

initially to the Department of Education, didn't we?

37:52

That's right. It turns out that a former

37:55

employee of the department, her name

37:57

Celeste Everingham, first

37:59

alerted the

37:59

department to Chris Dawson's alleged

38:02

underage sex with A.B.

38:05

and that was way back in 1997. She

38:08

had told a department investigator, Pat

38:10

Cleer, that she'd been provided information

38:13

from her nieces who'd attended Cromer

38:15

High School and that had raised

38:17

suspicions about what was going on between

38:20

Chris Dawson as a teacher and A.B.

38:22

when she was a student.

38:24

Miss Eberingham had also raised concerns

38:26

about two other unnamed teachers. Then

38:29

that led Mr Cleer, the department's

38:31

representative investigator, to try to

38:33

get hold of police files about the disappearance

38:36

of Dawson's wife Lynette.

38:38

Those files had been lost. He'd been informed

38:40

by a detective at the time. However,

38:42

he kept on investigating and he eventually

38:44

talked to A.B. herself.

38:47

A.B. agreed to give Pat

38:49

Cleer a statement. He then

38:51

sent a letter to Chris Dawson

38:54

in 1998.

38:55

Dawson was at that time living in Queensland

38:58

and Pat Cleer told Chris Dawson that this

39:01

allegation had been raised about improper

39:03

conduct of a sexual nature that had

39:05

related to a female student in 1980 and 1981. It

39:09

didn't name the student. He phoned

39:12

Dawson who refused to comment. Then

39:14

he sent a letter to Dawson seeking calls

39:16

to why his name should not be included on a

39:19

not to be employed list. That

39:21

did prompt a response from Dawson. He

39:23

rang Pat Cleer in July of 1998 and

39:26

according to Mr Cleer's file

39:29

notes

39:29

said, He did not intend to respond

39:32

to the letters in writing and he did not want his

39:34

non-response read as an admission. He

39:36

was not intending to return to New South Wales and for

39:38

that reason does not intend to go to the trouble

39:40

of responding. When it

39:43

was revealed for the first time that the Department of

39:45

Education had run their own investigation 20

39:48

years before Dawson was charged

39:51

with the murder of his wife.

39:53

I've tried to put myself in his shoes so he's

39:55

in Queensland living a fine life

39:58

enjoying the morning surf.

39:59

and out of nowhere,

40:03

someone he's never heard of from the Department

40:05

of Education is knocking on

40:07

the Dawson door

40:09

with a query about

40:11

his behavior at Cromer High. I'm

40:13

just wondering if that's a portal into

40:15

the sort of life he had to

40:18

lead. He never knew when

40:19

the phone was going to ring on there was to be

40:22

a knock on the door or a letter in the post

40:24

that would finally uncover

40:27

this secret.

40:28

I think that's exactly right. Although

40:30

he was a free man for so many years,

40:33

he had this hanging over him. He was

40:35

up in Queensland working as a teacher

40:37

and he's facing at that point multiple

40:39

investigations. He has the police

40:42

on his back looking into him through Damien

40:44

Loon and then he has the Education

40:47

Department now looking into him.

40:50

What this also raised to me was that this is decades

40:52

ago that the Education Department had this information.

40:55

Why has it taken so long for this charge

40:57

to come about? They had this information then,

41:00

they had it earlier from when A.B.

41:02

first gave a statement to police back

41:04

in 1990. It's not

41:06

clear to me why there hasn't been a prosecution

41:08

prior to this.

41:09

I love the figure of Celeste Everingham

41:12

in the middle of this too. This is probably

41:14

completely unfair but I'm imagining her as

41:16

the maiden aunt, the educator

41:19

who had nieces at Cromer High

41:21

who heard about

41:22

what was common knowledge at the school that the

41:25

former teacher, Mr. Dawson, had married

41:27

a school girl

41:29

and she said, that's not right.

41:32

She contacted the Department of Education. They

41:34

got off their backsides and actually started making

41:36

some inquiries. Hundreds

41:39

of employees at the Department of Education

41:41

would have already known about that. Every

41:44

teacher at the school, every family

41:46

who had a child at that school, every

41:49

administrator and yet they hadn't

41:51

done anything until Miss

41:53

Everingham raised it. The

41:56

reality is nothing changed. Chris

41:58

Dawson continued to to teach in

42:01

Queensland high schools, as

42:04

did his brother Paul. So,

42:06

you would have to assume that Queensland

42:09

education authorities were not told

42:11

by their counterparts what had been going on. In

42:14

fact, Chris Dawson was teaching at

42:16

an all-girls school, St

42:18

Ursula's, in Yapoon

42:20

in central Queensland. He continued

42:23

to teach there until after

42:26

the revelations from the first

42:28

inquest in 2001. Paul

42:31

Dawson, who was also named adversely

42:34

in that evidence, continued to teach

42:36

for a number of years, while

42:38

Chris Dawson left the system

42:41

soon after 2001.

42:44

It also shows, I think, that even though AB

42:46

in the witness box at this trial

42:49

has seemed resolute and determined,

42:52

we've named the podcast after her, she is

42:54

the teacher's accuser, she

42:57

only came forward in response to

43:00

an investigator contacting her. I think

43:03

it demonstrates the importance of tenacious

43:05

investigators in the criminal justice

43:08

and other systems like the education

43:10

system. You can't rely on

43:12

there being a complainant who's got the

43:14

wherewithal or the guts to come forward of

43:17

their own accord.

43:18

It's investigator's duty to go and find them.

43:21

And Ms. Everingham was that very

43:23

rare species in this

43:25

epic narrative in terms

43:27

of someone associated with Chroma

43:29

High, a person with a moral compass

43:31

at last.

43:32

And if her nieces happen to be listening, we'd

43:34

love to hear from them. There's one

43:37

small conflict here in that AB, when she

43:39

gave her evidence,

43:40

thought that she was the one who initiated this investigation.

43:43

These records show something different, that it was

43:46

Celeste Everingham who prompted the

43:48

department to look into it at the time.

43:51

So perhaps AB was unaware

43:53

of how this actually came about. Yes,

43:55

AB's recollection was that somebody

43:58

who she was working with at Manly Court court

44:00

when she was there doing work on behalf of

44:02

a domestic violence refuge had

44:04

contacted the Department of Education. When

44:07

she was giving her evidence in chief, that was

44:09

new. We didn't realise that that was her perception

44:11

of what had happened. As

44:12

it turned out, the wheels of the Education

44:15

Department were moving independently

44:17

of her just extremely slowly.

44:20

Mason- There's something to be said here too about

44:23

the issue of memory

44:24

over time, over time.

44:27

A.B. herself has said memory is slippery,

44:29

it moves around. The defence

44:33

has argued logically that some

44:35

of those memories are unreliable and

44:37

made up to suit the circumstances of

44:40

this trial and the charge. But

44:42

this Department of Education information,

44:45

after all these years, is new information.

44:47

It

44:47

has emerged,

44:49

it's true, and there may

44:51

be more facts. It goes to

44:53

the point of proving A.B.'s assertion

44:56

that it is not improbable that

44:59

a solid fact can emerge after

45:01

decades. Emma- Isn't it intriguing,

45:03

mate, just going back to your point about Celeste

45:06

Everingham being the one with the

45:08

moral compass and the courage to speak

45:10

up. It's almost like

45:12

this mass delusion or mass

45:14

hysteria at Cromer High, isn't

45:17

it? Without commenting

45:19

directly on whether or not Chris Dawson is guilty

45:21

of this particular charge, it's clear

45:23

that there was an environment of schoolgirls

45:26

holding hands with teachers, schoolgirls

45:29

sitting on teachers' laps, that

45:32

nobody thought was weird.

45:34

Mason- Even A.B.'s sister

45:37

in her slender statement

45:39

said it was normal for teachers

45:41

to drop children home after school,

45:43

to drop schoolgirls home. I

45:46

mean, this is so far from most of our

45:48

understanding of the

45:50

right and wrong of the world of education,

45:53

that it does seem to be its own parallel

45:55

universe at Cromer High. Emma- There's been

45:58

a lot of obfuscation.

45:59

And pretending, I

46:01

think, over the years about whether or not the police

46:03

were investigating the disappearance of Lynette

46:05

Dawson independently.

46:07

What I thought was interesting, Matt, about Laura

46:10

Beecroft is that when she was asked what

46:12

led to the creation of Strike Force Southwood,

46:15

she said very clearly, a podcast.

46:17

Through the trial, the

46:20

spectre of the evil podcast contaminating

46:23

people's evidence, the defence

46:25

kept threatening that this was the trump card

46:27

and would take over the trial. That

46:30

evaporated.

46:31

A year later, we come to this new trial

46:33

and there it is, straight flush

46:35

on the table from Detective Beecroft.

46:39

The reason Strike Force Southwood was formed

46:42

was one reason and one reason only, the

46:44

teacher's pet. On the following

46:46

day of hearings, Laura Beecroft was cross-examined

46:49

by public defender Claire Wozli who

46:51

took her straight to two new

46:54

elements of evidence that AB

46:56

has raised at this trial. These

46:58

are things that Claire Wozli cross-examined

47:01

AB hard on and that it's

47:03

clear that they were going to become part

47:05

of her argument to the judge that AB

47:08

can't be relied upon. The first

47:10

was the topless photo.

47:12

Claire Wozli asked Laura Beecroft to confirm

47:15

that the complainant had never mentioned before

47:17

this trial an incident in 1979

47:21

when she was in year 10 where Chris

47:23

Dawson confiscated a topless photo

47:25

of her that was circulating in the playground.

47:27

Here's what Laura Beecroft said about that.

47:30

Do you agree that

47:32

the complainant never mentioned to you

47:34

or in any of her previous statements or

47:37

evidence in relation to the accused an

47:39

incident in 1979 where she was in year 10 involving

47:43

the accused returning a topless photo

47:45

of her to her? The

47:47

complainant never mentioned that to me. I

47:50

can't speak of if she mentioned it to any other officers

47:53

but I agree it does not appear in any previous

47:55

statements. Claire

47:58

Wozli then asked her about another novel

48:00

issue. This is AB's

48:03

recollection of two teachers, Chris

48:05

Dawson and Leslie Bush, jostling

48:08

for the opportunity to teach the

48:10

cool group in the Year 11 sports

48:12

coaching class. AB

48:14

gave evidence that she observed this at

48:17

the beginning of Year 11,

48:19

that is

48:21

1980. Claire Wozli put it to her that that

48:23

was not a real memory.

48:26

AB said that she did see it happen.

48:28

Claire Wozli in cross-examination

48:31

asked Laura Beecroft about that and

48:33

Laura Beecroft played a dead bat. She

48:35

agreed that it hadn't been raised

48:37

in any statements or evidence before this trial.

48:42

Are you now aware that the complainant has given

48:44

evidence in this trial that she observed an incident

48:46

at the beginning of Year 11 where the

48:48

accused and Leslie Bush were jostling

48:51

over who would take the Year 11 sports coaching

48:53

class in which she was a student?

48:56

I've now been made aware of that, yes.

48:58

Do you agree that observation was not

49:01

raised by the complainant to you

49:02

during your investigation or

49:04

in any statements to strike force Southwood

49:07

or in any of her statements or evidence

49:10

in relation to the accused provided

49:12

prior to the commencement of your investigation?

49:15

That's correct.

49:17

In her cross-examination of Laura

49:19

Beecroft, Claire Wozli raised the teacher's

49:21

pet and this goes to defence

49:24

concerns about potential contamination

49:26

of witnesses by hearing the teacher's

49:28

pet. So

49:30

Claire Wozli asked Laura Beecroft

49:32

to agree that the teacher's pet was published

49:34

in about May 2018, that in that podcast

49:39

the timeline of events was discussed.

49:42

That is AB's allegation that she and Chris

49:44

Dawson first kissed, that he first

49:46

touched her and that they first had sexual

49:49

relations in Year 11,

49:51

that is in 1980. The

49:54

police officer agreed that all that material

49:57

was in the public domain thanks

49:58

to the podcast in early 2018.

50:01

2018. At this point, Dave, I was picking

50:03

up the phone to call our lawyer because I was concerned

50:06

that the Australian and the teacher's pet were

50:08

about to be blamed for contaminating

50:10

witnesses. And I wanted somebody

50:13

to make the point

50:13

to the judge that in fact,

50:15

we took that podcast down in April 2019

50:19

to avoid any risk to future

50:21

criminal proceedings.

50:23

And in fact, I didn't have to get a barrister to

50:25

rush down to court to make those points for us because

50:27

in reexamination, which is the

50:29

crown's opportunity to go back to a witness

50:32

after cross examination, Emma

50:34

Blizzard raised those points for us.

50:37

That's right. She let the court know that when

50:39

the teacher's pet came back online in Australia,

50:42

it wasn't the original version. It

50:45

had been changed to remove a

50:47

lot of the details around the

50:49

events that are the subject of this particular

50:51

trial.

50:52

We know that the contamination argument

50:55

featured very heavily in the murder trial.

50:57

And again, here we see it in this trial.

50:59

It didn't go anywhere

51:01

for Chris Dawson in his defense when he

51:03

was trying to get off the murder charge. I

51:05

guess we'll find out pretty soon whether it has any impact

51:07

on this trial too.

51:09

It's logical that it reared its head again in this

51:11

trial, but thinking back to the murder

51:13

trial, where it

51:14

completely fell flat on its face.

51:17

And that is the contention that a podcast

51:20

that someone can hear, and

51:22

that it can in fact impact or affect

51:26

their memory and recollection,

51:28

and then be reproduced as a fresh statement.

51:31

That would take a week-long conference

51:34

with global linguists, psychologists,

51:37

and therapists to try and understand

51:39

the genesis of that process.

51:43

And I still think they wouldn't come to an

51:45

answer even after that. It's a very complex

51:48

and difficult proposition that has never

51:50

been satisfactorily answered. Now, it feels

51:53

like something that the defense lawyers sort of fly up

51:55

the flagpole just to see if anyone will salute

51:57

it. Were you influenced by... hearing

52:00

yourself or the potential to hear yourself on the teacher's

52:02

pet just in case someone says, oh yeah,

52:05

I'm at it all up. It's

52:07

a good try. Yeah. The difference here was we

52:09

were spared long interview

52:12

excerpts as were played in the

52:14

murder trial. This time the defence

52:16

decided that wasn't going anywhere.

52:18

And so it was raised, but it wasn't raised

52:21

to the extent that it was when Christoson

52:23

was on trial for Len's murder.

52:25

Dave, it's every accused person's

52:27

right not to give evidence in their

52:29

own defence and not to call any witnesses.

52:32

In a murder trial,

52:33

Christoson's defence called one

52:35

witness. That was someone who said that he

52:38

had seen Len after her disappearance

52:40

and had a drink with her at a pub.

52:43

Here's a snippet of that murder trial. We've

52:45

used voice actors to bring you the words of the

52:47

witness, Paul Cooper and Crown Prosecutor

52:51

Craig Ebersen, SC in cross-examination.

52:54

After Paul Cooper had

52:55

told this quite stunning story

52:57

about seeing Len, Craig Ebersen

52:59

said about letting the judge know Cooper

53:02

might not be the most reliable witness.

53:04

Paul Cooper agreed with Ebersen there

53:07

had been some time when he hadn't

53:09

had a job. Tell

53:12

his honour what that was. What was preventing

53:14

you from working? Spinal injury.

53:17

Anything else apart from the spinal injury? No,

53:20

I don't know what you mean as to what. Did you

53:22

go away anywhere? Uh,

53:24

yeah, I've been to jail, yeah.

53:27

What for? Lots of different things.

53:29

Tell his honour what that was, please. Oh,

53:32

drugs, breaking air and all

53:34

sorts of things. Armed robbery? Yeah,

53:37

yeah. And plenty of offences of dishonesty?

53:40

Um, theft and that, yeah. False

53:43

pretenses?

53:44

Yep. It

53:46

was a bizarre note in that murder

53:48

trial. There were no attempts like that

53:51

in this trial by Dawson to

53:54

call evidence, were there? You never quite know

53:56

whether someone is going to call some evidence

53:58

in their defence. Again, we're...

53:59

He didn't know what would happen in this

54:02

case.

54:02

Didn't know for sure whether Chris Dawson himself

54:05

would give evidence, but you're right, he did

54:07

not call any witnesses and he declined

54:09

to give evidence in his own defense, just

54:11

as he'd done in his murder trial.

54:13

Well, he did in a way speak

54:16

in his silence, observing him on that audio

54:18

visual scream. What was remarkable

54:20

to me was the

54:21

little pedantic things that he would shake

54:24

his head at

54:24

after 43 years that

54:27

troubled and worried him. This is

54:29

a convicted murderer. And yet

54:31

some of these inane facts about

54:34

his appalling behavior towards a student

54:37

were upsetting him. Yeah. That notion of

54:39

him jostling to get the year 11 sports

54:41

coaching class, you could see him reacting

54:43

with a

54:45

slightly cartoonish exaggerated

54:47

reactions like, what, you know, as

54:49

if I would do that. If we could have heard him,

54:51

perhaps that's what he would have been saying. It

54:53

was as though that

54:55

allegation was more shocking than being

54:57

accused of unlawful sex with

54:59

a schoolgirl. The petty things he seemed

55:01

to get upset about. He seems to have

55:03

difficulty with prioritizing matters

55:06

and perhaps leaning on the obtuse

55:09

and ignoring the grotesque. We'll

55:18

take a quick break.

55:28

Welcome back.

55:30

The final day of hearings at the New South

55:32

Wales

55:33

district court saw the two barristers

55:35

give their closing arguments to the

55:37

judge. Matt, you can

55:39

expect in a judge alone trial that

55:42

closing statements would be fairly utilitarian.

55:44

In fact, we'd heard that they might just be

55:46

dot points submitted on pieces of paper.

55:48

That's what the judge had told the lawyers they could

55:51

do.

55:52

I was dreading that because it doesn't give us much

55:54

to analyze. But in fact,

55:57

neither of them chose to take that path.

55:59

And the first. on her feet was Emma Blizzard,

56:01

who until now has seemed fairly

56:04

low-key, fairly reserved. Mason

56:05

We'd seen Emma Blizzard at

56:08

work, of course, last year during the murder

56:10

trial when she assisted Craig

56:12

Everson, SC.

56:14

I think you can safely say that The Apprentice

56:17

has come out from the shadow of

56:19

the Master,

56:20

and I detected some Eversonian

56:22

traits, if you like,

56:24

in her closing argument, in the sense that

56:27

she opened in a very dramatic way.

56:29

If you recall back to the murder trial,

56:31

Everson opened his case with

56:34

the drama of the Muhammad Ali fight in 1975. Emma

56:37

Here's a snippet of Craig Everson's opening

56:40

argument from that murder trial. It's

56:42

being read by a voice actor. Craig

56:46

On the 1st of October 1975, Muhammad Ali fought Joe

56:49

Frazier in the Philippines. That fight

56:52

was watched by members of the Newtown Rugby League

56:54

team who had travelled to the Gold Coast for an

56:56

end of season holiday, as it were.

56:59

On the return flight seated in an aisle

57:01

seat was Robert Silkman, a man with some

57:03

admitted criminal connections.

57:05

He was approached by Chris Dawson, the accused.

57:08

The two of them were well known to each other, having

57:10

played together in the second grade side at Newtown,

57:13

and the Crown alleges that the accused asked

57:15

Mr Silkman if he knew someone who

57:17

could get rid of his wife. This is

57:19

a matter that went no further.

57:22

So you've got a narrative at the top of

57:25

this drama that's to come,

57:26

and then it was incredibly well organised.

57:29

It was systemic, it was logical, it

57:31

was clear. Everything was

57:34

signposted, to my mind, in a very,

57:36

very clear way. So we

57:38

had seen her in action through this

57:40

trial. She has a tendency to speak

57:43

in a rapid fire manner. It's difficult

57:45

sometimes to actually pick up what she was saying

57:47

through the trial.

57:48

In this case, she came right back, slowed

57:50

everything down, and gave, I think,

57:53

a commanding performance. She launched

57:55

straight into quotes from the

57:58

trial, the ones that she wants to ring

58:00

in the judge's head as she writes

58:02

her judgment over the next fortnight. And

58:05

lined up the way Emma Blizzard lined

58:07

them up, they are really powerful.

58:10

Let's hear now some of Emma Blizzard's closing.

58:13

These are her words but not her voice. I

58:18

actually saw her there sitting on his lap. She

58:20

also told us that year that he, by the end of

58:22

the year, that he loved her. And she did

58:24

say to us, he wants to marry me. He's going to

58:26

look after me. The door was a bit

58:29

of ajar, and so I went in and AB

58:31

and the teacher were there, Chris Dawson. AB

58:33

was sitting on the desk and Chris Dawson was standing

58:35

between her legs. She was sitting there

58:37

with her legs apart and so Mr Dawson was

58:39

standing between her legs. He

58:42

was pushing my chest all, not really aggressively,

58:44

more just sort of a threatening way

58:46

I guess you could say. And then he backed me up

58:48

against the wall. Then he said words to the

58:50

effect of, stay away from her, don't go

58:52

near her. I was completely perplexed

58:55

about what was going on and probably pretty scared.

58:58

And I said, who? And he said, AB. On

59:01

the Crown case, that occurred prior to the end

59:03

of September 1980, towards what

59:05

he perceived as a teenage rival interested

59:07

in AB,

59:08

and a teenage rival who had made that known. A

59:11

pleasure to teach. The words

59:13

of the accused on the complainant's November 1980 school

59:16

report card.

59:18

Once or twice every minute, love always

59:20

God. The words of the accused

59:22

on a card to the complainant for Christmas 1980. About

59:26

six weeks after he gave her that card, he

59:28

gave her another card for her 17th birthday,

59:31

addressed to the most beautiful girl in the world on

59:33

her 17th birthday.

59:35

Inside that card, he wrote words that included,

59:38

knowing we will share all the birthdays to follow,

59:41

all my love forever. The

59:43

complainant's timeline that sexual interaction

59:45

with the accused started in the latter half

59:47

of the 1980 school year is powerfully

59:49

supported by what was seen and heard by others.

59:52

The accused's own behaviour and the accused's

59:55

own words in the school report and the cards

59:57

he gave the complainant. The

1:00:00

closing address in this trial did remind me

1:00:03

of Craig Everson's closing address in

1:00:05

the murder trial. It's not

1:00:07

uncommon for the two ISC

1:00:09

to do a lot of the work

1:00:12

for something like the closing submission. So

1:00:14

maybe we are seeing Emma Blizzard's influence

1:00:17

also on the murder trial.

1:00:19

After that quite lyrical start to her

1:00:21

closing address, Emma Blizzard went

1:00:23

to what she knew Claire Wazly

1:00:26

would be telling the judge. And that is that

1:00:28

A.B. can't

1:00:29

be trusted because her story

1:00:31

has changed over the years. This

1:00:33

is a very common feature of criminal trials,

1:00:35

particularly as it relates to historical offending

1:00:38

where the

1:00:39

complainant's allegations have

1:00:41

been retailed in different statements

1:00:44

and different pieces of evidence over the years. Emma

1:00:47

Blizzard wasn't going to leave it to Claire

1:00:49

Wazly to make all these points. She

1:00:51

was getting in first to say,

1:00:53

yes, there

1:00:54

are some elements of this evidence

1:00:56

that are new at this trial or that have

1:00:59

changed over the years. But the

1:01:01

central point is that

1:01:03

A.B. says it happened in 1980

1:01:06

when she was 16 years

1:01:07

old and the evidence backs her up. Emma

1:01:10

Blizzard said that A.B. was the central

1:01:12

witness at this trial and she said

1:01:14

she was a genuine witness, but that she

1:01:16

did not stand alone, that she was supported

1:01:19

by other witnesses and also by

1:01:21

Chris Dawson's own words.

1:01:23

Emma Blizzard also made the point that

1:01:25

there was a lot happening for A.B.

1:01:27

in 1980. And this

1:01:29

is about explaining some lapses

1:01:32

in memory, that in that year

1:01:34

there

1:01:35

was immense turmoil at home.

1:01:38

Her mother and stepfather had a turbulent

1:01:41

and violent relationship that the violence

1:01:43

had spilled over to affect A.B.

1:01:46

herself. They moved

1:01:48

house. She was, of course,

1:01:50

beginning the most important years of her

1:01:52

schooling. So it

1:01:54

was a difficult time with a lot

1:01:56

going on. Emma Blizzard provided a very important

1:01:59

piece of evidence to her.

1:01:59

a clear timeline to the judge of the

1:02:02

events that

1:02:03

the Crown says are important. And

1:02:05

this was a bit of a bold choice, I think, given

1:02:07

that this was new evidence that

1:02:10

AB had not mentioned before, but

1:02:13

Emma Blizzard is backing her in. Event

1:02:15

number one was the topless photo. In 1979,

1:02:18

when AB was in year 10 at Cromer

1:02:20

High, that the accused confiscated

1:02:23

a topless photo of her, which had been going

1:02:25

around the school,

1:02:26

and that in effect, this was her introduction

1:02:28

to him. She then obliquely

1:02:31

referred to that jostling

1:02:33

between Chris Dawson and Leslie

1:02:35

Boush.

1:02:38

It is the Crown case that the accused, having

1:02:40

decided that he would be the complainant's teacher

1:02:42

for the following year, took steps to make

1:02:44

that happen.

1:02:45

And he told the complainant that he had done that

1:02:47

because he thought she was beautiful and he wanted

1:02:49

to get to know her. Matt,

1:02:52

this is where Chris Dawson began

1:02:54

shaking his head. And I nudged you

1:02:56

in court because you were diligently making

1:02:58

notes. I gave you a big elbow to make

1:03:01

sure that you were looking up at the screen where Chris Dawson

1:03:03

was shaking his head. In fact, at one

1:03:06

point, he even put his head down on his clasped

1:03:08

hands, didn't he? Yes, he did. I

1:03:10

mean, he'd been

1:03:11

like a taxidermy dummy for

1:03:13

days.

1:03:14

Emotionless, staring with a dull

1:03:17

gaze.

1:03:18

I'd never seen him more animated than in the

1:03:20

closing arguments, leaning his

1:03:22

forehead on his clenched hands, shaking

1:03:26

his head,

1:03:27

having a look of disgust on

1:03:30

his face.

1:03:31

I think that his face was the barometer

1:03:33

of the effectiveness of the closing argument.

1:03:36

Event number two was the sports carnival, which

1:03:38

A.B. said occurred in the first half of 1980

1:03:41

and that occurred before she began

1:03:43

babysitting for the Dorsons.

1:03:44

Event number three was the tennis

1:03:47

match. A.B. gave evidence

1:03:49

that this was where Chris Dawson arranged

1:03:51

for A.B. to meet Lynn

1:03:54

Dawson. A bit of a chilling moment.

1:03:57

A.B. had a male friend at

1:03:58

school who... came to the tennis match

1:04:01

with her

1:04:02

and it appeared that Lynn liked her

1:04:04

and

1:04:04

gave permission for her to begin babysitting,

1:04:06

which was Chris Dawson's idea, according

1:04:08

to AB.

1:04:09

And AB's evidence was that the accused

1:04:11

had raised casually in conversation the topic

1:04:14

of her babysitting his children. She

1:04:16

knew that he'd had babysitters before her and

1:04:18

that in that context arrangements were made

1:04:20

for a social tennis match so she could meet his

1:04:22

wife. The way that she described it was

1:04:25

so she could be cleared to babysit. A

1:04:27

social game of tennis occurred between the accused,

1:04:29

his then wife, the complainant and her friend.

1:04:32

Now this is where the timeline gets interesting. Emma

1:04:35

Blizzard puts event number four

1:04:37

as the commencement of the babysitting and

1:04:39

pins it to July of 1980.

1:04:42

Let's hear why.

1:04:44

That commenced, the crown contends, by July

1:04:46

of 1980.

1:04:48

AB's evidence was that she recalled not

1:04:50

long after starting the babysitting being at

1:04:52

a combined children's birthday party for the

1:04:54

accused's two oldest children.

1:04:57

And your Honour will see in paragraph eight of the agreed

1:04:59

facts that the birth dates of those children are

1:05:01

the 9th and the 11th of July. The

1:05:03

crown case is that the babysitting had started

1:05:06

by July and the complainant's evidence

1:05:08

was that she was not paid for the babysitting and

1:05:10

that it would happen on Saturdays and that

1:05:12

she would get to and from the babysitting by

1:05:14

being picked up from either home or her part-time

1:05:17

job at Coles and that she would spend

1:05:19

the night at the accused's home.

1:05:21

It was after she was a regular babysitter

1:05:23

that Emma Blizzard says event number

1:05:26

five happened, the first kiss in

1:05:28

Dawson's car.

1:05:29

Now Emma Blizzard spent quite a bit of time on this

1:05:32

because she knows this is going to be

1:05:34

the subject of submissions by

1:05:36

Claire Walsley that AB's timeline can't

1:05:39

be relied upon. That's

1:05:41

because

1:05:41

AB had said in previous

1:05:43

statements that the first kiss happened

1:05:46

during a driving lesson.

1:05:48

And we know that AB couldn't have got her learner's

1:05:50

permit until November of 1980.

1:05:53

And so Emma Blizzard put a number of

1:05:56

alternative scenarios to the judge

1:05:59

which could have allowed allowed this first kiss

1:06:01

to happen before November 1980. That

1:06:04

takes the pressure off the timeline a little

1:06:07

bit. We know that school finished on

1:06:09

December 12, 1980.

1:06:11

So if the first kiss wasn't until after

1:06:14

AB obtained her learner's permit,

1:06:16

that would mean that Chris Dawson only

1:06:19

had a month

1:06:20

to kiss her and to begin

1:06:22

sexual relations. Emmab

1:06:24

Lizzard wanted to leave it open to the judge

1:06:26

to find that the kiss didn't

1:06:29

necessarily happen on a driving

1:06:31

lesson or after AB obtained

1:06:33

that learner's permit. Event

1:06:35

number six and the most important event, of

1:06:37

course, this is where the alleged criminal

1:06:40

act took place, was the

1:06:42

first instance of sexual relations

1:06:45

at Chris Dawson's parents' home in

1:06:47

Chester

1:06:47

Street, Marubra. She's the

1:06:50

only witness to the events at Marubra

1:06:52

and the Crown submits that she gave powerful,

1:06:54

honest and reliable evidence about the events

1:06:56

at Marubra and the surrounding events of her

1:06:58

interactions with the accused.

1:07:01

Your Honour might think that watching AB's evidence

1:07:03

that, when describing it, she appeared to be reliving

1:07:06

it. She talked about how she didn't want the

1:07:08

lights on because she was afraid, that

1:07:09

the accused took off her clothes and she was

1:07:12

lying on the bed in anticipation and she

1:07:14

was shaking. She talked about the accused

1:07:16

making sure she was comfortable, afterwards

1:07:18

telling her it was a good start and she'd done

1:07:21

well. She said she thanked him and

1:07:23

she was grateful.

1:07:24

Emma Blizzard said there were four concrete

1:07:27

one-off events that placed this happening

1:07:29

within the school year, that is, before

1:07:31

December 12, 1980. The

1:07:34

first was the birthday party, which

1:07:36

Emma Blizzard said must have happened in

1:07:38

July 1980 because that's the month

1:07:40

when both Dawson's daughters had birthdays.

1:07:44

The second was the comment the accused wrote

1:07:46

on the November 1980 school report

1:07:48

that she was a pleasure to teach.

1:07:50

The third was the complainant

1:07:53

writing

1:07:54

what she herself said was something

1:07:56

exotic on her final exam

1:07:59

in a bleak way. reference to the sexual interaction.

1:08:02

And the fourth was a matter that's been heard

1:08:04

in closed court, Dave. We don't know

1:08:07

what this fourth matter is. Even

1:08:09

if we did know, we wouldn't be allowed to report

1:08:11

it. It's obviously something sensitive

1:08:13

and personal. Yeah, there is that mystery

1:08:16

element of this trial. What is the judge hearing

1:08:18

that we're not hearing? We just don't

1:08:20

know at this point.

1:08:21

We may never know.

1:08:23

The next thing that Emma Blizzard mentioned was

1:08:25

the evidence of another witness. Again, we

1:08:28

can't name this person. But she

1:08:30

was a former schoolgirl who gave evidence

1:08:32

in the trial that by the end of the 1980 school year,

1:08:36

A.B. told her that Dawson

1:08:38

was proposing marriage to her, that

1:08:40

he said he was going to look after her.

1:08:43

That evidence that by the end of the 1980 school year,

1:08:46

the accused was saying a number of things. One,

1:08:48

that he wanted to marry her. Two, that he's

1:08:51

going to look after me. That your honor

1:08:53

might think dovetails into the complainant's account,

1:08:55

that the accused was counseling her about her

1:08:57

family problems. And then the description

1:09:00

she provides of what the accused says at

1:09:02

Maroubra. And then he says he's going to

1:09:04

look after me.

1:09:05

That evidence, the Crown says, is powerful

1:09:08

evidence in support of the complainant's timeline

1:09:10

that things are this advanced with the accused

1:09:12

by the end of the 1980 school year.

1:09:15

Next, and this is Event 7, is the school

1:09:17

report in November 1980. And

1:09:19

here's what Emma Blizzard said about that in her closing.

1:09:23

Her evidence that these words had a double

1:09:25

meaning has a ring of truth when you consider a

1:09:27

teacher who would the following month give

1:09:29

a 16-year-old girl a card that said,

1:09:32

Love Always God. Might also

1:09:34

think it was clever and cunning to write words with

1:09:36

a double meaning on her school report when only

1:09:38

they would know what those words really meant.

1:09:42

To me, this is the point where Emma Blizzard

1:09:45

is pulling it all together, all of these

1:09:47

different threads. It's really this

1:09:49

big build up to the end of 1980, that

1:09:52

Christmas card where he wrote Love Always

1:09:55

God. That was Event number 8 in this

1:09:57

timeline that Emma Blizzard was laying out

1:09:59

to the judge. And the next one, event

1:10:01

number nine, was the birthday card

1:10:03

that Chris Dawson wrote to

1:10:05

AB for his 17th

1:10:08

birthday in February of 1981.

1:10:11

That card said, to the most beautiful girl

1:10:13

in the world on her 17th birthday, knowing

1:10:15

we will share all the birthdays to follow all

1:10:18

my love.

1:10:19

I mean, this is really powerful when you lay

1:10:22

it out in the way that Emma Blizzard has done,

1:10:25

because Chris Dawson is saying,

1:10:27

sexual activity and then all of these events must

1:10:29

have happened in 1981. Yet

1:10:31

here he is in his own words, writing her a Christmas

1:10:34

card at the end of 1980, a very personal

1:10:36

one.

1:10:37

And even more personal one in February

1:10:39

of 1981, a birthday card.

1:10:43

It really is so damaging to his version

1:10:45

of events that

1:10:46

really things only developed

1:10:48

after the end of grade 11,

1:10:51

when here he is condemned by

1:10:53

his own words.

1:10:55

When Blizzard raised the pleasure

1:10:58

to teach cryptic comment in

1:11:00

the report, I looked up at the screen at

1:11:03

Dawson and thought, could you

1:11:05

have been that infantile

1:11:08

to have thought that was funny or amusing?

1:11:11

And in fact, there has been plenty of evidence to

1:11:13

indicate that, yes, it

1:11:16

seems to me this man in his early

1:11:18

30s with a wife and two little children was

1:11:21

himself a high school student again.

1:11:24

These are the behaviours of an undeveloped

1:11:27

boy and there were plenty of examples.

1:11:30

It's also extraordinarily brazen.

1:11:32

Chris Dawson knew from his

1:11:35

counselling, as the

1:11:37

lawyers have described it, of AB, that she

1:11:39

had an extremely troubled home life, that

1:11:41

her mum was struggling to focus on her daughters,

1:11:44

that her stepfather was violent, that

1:11:46

her father was not living in the same home.

1:11:49

He knew that there was unlikely to

1:11:51

be a parent reading

1:11:52

this report and having their radar

1:11:54

go off. AB said in her evidence

1:11:56

he thought it was cunning to write this on a public document.

1:11:59

That means he also... felt confident

1:12:01

enough that other school authorities,

1:12:03

maybe the principal, would see this report before

1:12:06

it went out to the parents and

1:12:08

he was still

1:12:09

bold enough to write that. And

1:12:11

that's a child's mentality trying to poke

1:12:14

his tongue out at the authorities. We

1:12:16

only have A.B.'s word for the double

1:12:18

meaning that she says is associated with

1:12:21

the comment, a pleasure to teach and

1:12:23

that's why it was such an interesting way

1:12:26

to lay this out for the judge and the closing submissions

1:12:28

because effectively she's saying well if you

1:12:31

have any questions about whether that's really

1:12:33

what he meant and whether that's what he really told

1:12:35

her he meant in that comment you only

1:12:38

have to look to that Christmas

1:12:39

card a very short period

1:12:41

later where he's giving himself this codename

1:12:43

so I personally found that very effective

1:12:46

as well.

1:12:49

Claire Wozli started off her closing

1:12:51

submission by saying that there could be some

1:12:54

sympathy for A.B. She

1:12:57

said that A.B. clearly had become upset

1:13:00

and frustrated at times when she

1:13:02

was giving evidence but

1:13:04

Claire Wozli's take on that was to say

1:13:06

well perhaps the reason that she was becoming

1:13:08

upset and frustrated was because

1:13:10

she was being challenged she didn't like the fact

1:13:13

that she had to account for the things that she

1:13:15

had said in previous statements

1:13:18

in previous evidence in the long history

1:13:20

of this case

1:13:21

and those things not always jelling

1:13:23

with what she's told this trial. Mr

1:13:27

Dawson's case is that while he was involved

1:13:29

in a sexual relationship with the complainant

1:13:32

that commenced while he was married and

1:13:34

while she was a school student it did

1:13:36

not commence while she was in his year 11 sports

1:13:39

coaching class in 1980. It is

1:13:42

not submitted on behalf of the accused

1:13:44

that his sexual relationship with the complainant

1:13:46

while she was at school was an appropriate

1:13:48

one just that it

1:13:49

did not commence while she was in his class.

1:13:53

Your honours role as the judge of the facts is

1:13:55

obviously not about expressing sympathy for

1:13:57

the complainant or suspicion

1:13:59

of Mr Dawson. You do

1:14:01

have to judge him, and you should judge him fairly.

1:14:04

You should judge him according to the evidence, and

1:14:06

you should judge him according to the law.

1:14:08

The single count on the indictment

1:14:10

relies upon your honour accepting the evidence

1:14:12

of the complainant beyond reasonable doubt as

1:14:15

to when the first act of sexual intercourse

1:14:17

occurred. Finding that the accused

1:14:20

had sexual intercourse with the complainant in 1980

1:14:22

is not enough. Finding

1:14:25

that the accused had sexual intercourse with the

1:14:27

complainant while she was 16 is not enough.

1:14:30

Your honour must be satisfied that the first

1:14:33

instance of sexual intercourse occurred

1:14:35

while the complainant was still in the accused's

1:14:37

Year 11

1:14:38

sports coaching class. For

1:14:40

the reasons I'll take your honour to in this address,

1:14:43

I suggest you would not be satisfied beyond

1:14:45

reasonable doubt of Mr Dawson's

1:14:46

guilt.

1:14:47

The concept central to a criminal trial

1:14:50

in this state is the presumption of innocence.

1:14:53

Your honour will direct yourself on that basis

1:14:55

that Mr Dawson is presumed to be not

1:14:58

guilty of a crime unless

1:15:00

and until the prosecution have proven

1:15:02

his guilt of the criminal offence and

1:15:05

proven it beyond reasonable doubt. It

1:15:08

is a heavy onus and it rests with the Crown

1:15:10

from the beginning to the end of the trial.

1:15:12

Mr Dawson does not have to prove his

1:15:14

innocence.

1:15:16

Mr Dawson does not have to prove a thing. So

1:15:21

this is fascinating because it presents

1:15:24

a very interesting parallel

1:15:27

with the opening address

1:15:29

of Dawson's legal counsel

1:15:31

in his murder trial. That was

1:15:34

then barris to Pauline David. In

1:15:37

her opening address last year,

1:15:39

she said that while Mr Dawson

1:15:42

may have failed as a husband,

1:15:45

he did not kill his wife.

1:15:47

Fast forward to this

1:15:49

closing statement from Claire Wosley.

1:15:52

We have the

1:15:53

sexual relationship that

1:15:55

Dawson had with AB,

1:15:56

while not necessarily an appropriate

1:15:59

one, didn't. happen when it allegedly

1:16:01

happened. So what you're saying in both

1:16:03

instances is, look, he might have been a naughty

1:16:06

boy here,

1:16:07

and we can accept that,

1:16:09

but the reality is different. That's

1:16:11

why he's innocent in both cases, murder,

1:16:14

carnal knowledge.

1:16:16

This is the same template as the murder

1:16:18

template.

1:16:19

The clear was he spent an enormous

1:16:21

amount of time on the first kiss.

1:16:24

I mean, I didn't time it, but it felt

1:16:26

like the vast majority of her closing.

1:16:29

Whereas previously, Davey talked

1:16:31

about this first kiss being associated with

1:16:33

driving lessons.

1:16:35

Now she was saying, well, it may have been before

1:16:37

driving lessons. It may have been before the learner's

1:16:39

permit. Clear was there saying, well, that's

1:16:42

very convenient, isn't it, for this particular

1:16:44

complainant? And she actually

1:16:47

accused her straight up of just inventing

1:16:49

things when she was in the witness box.

1:16:52

The complainant first suggests

1:16:54

that it is quite possible that she was having driving

1:16:57

lessons before she'd had her licence.

1:16:59

It's submitted that that is something that complainant

1:17:02

made up in the face of the evidence to

1:17:04

which she was taken, and the previous

1:17:06

statements to which she was taken that

1:17:08

provided this consistent

1:17:10

account and her evidence in this

1:17:12

trial about driving lessons not commencing

1:17:15

until she had her learner's permit. It's

1:17:18

submitted that the complainant had a motive

1:17:20

to lie on this issue because of the manner

1:17:23

in which the evidence unfolded and

1:17:25

her realisation crystallised about

1:17:27

the inconsistency between the things she was

1:17:29

saying.

1:17:30

She's doing

1:17:32

her job and she's doing it well. And

1:17:34

sometimes cases like this can

1:17:37

turn on the smallest things. But

1:17:40

I have to say sitting there listening to this,

1:17:42

it just didn't seem to get to the

1:17:45

point where there

1:17:46

was it was trying to take us that made all

1:17:49

these events seem just impossible. I

1:17:52

guess she's trying to create that reasonable

1:17:54

doubt for her client, Chris Dawson.

1:17:56

We'll know soon enough. Yeah, it didn't

1:17:58

address the central- point that

1:18:01

A.B.,

1:18:02

despite some inconsistencies and new

1:18:05

evidence at this trial, has

1:18:07

always said she first

1:18:09

had sex with Chris Dawson when she was 16.

1:18:13

That's a bit like one of those dates. You remember

1:18:16

you were 17 when you graduated school or

1:18:19

you were 25 when you bought your first

1:18:21

car. A.B. has never wavered

1:18:23

on that. And Claire Worsley

1:18:26

didn't directly address that. As you say, Dave,

1:18:28

it is her job to go to the detail and

1:18:30

she made the most of it.

1:18:33

Claire Worsley really challenged A.B.'s evidence

1:18:35

about the Linfield Pool. Claire Worsley

1:18:37

said, well, there was another witness, Lee

1:18:39

Maloney, who'd given evidence he would attended

1:18:42

these fitness classes who had

1:18:44

said she

1:18:45

only attended in 1981 and saw the

1:18:47

two girls there. So she was really

1:18:50

trying to distance those events from

1:18:52

this crucial time period in 1980.

1:18:55

Claire Worsley also depicted the

1:18:57

evidence of other former Cromer

1:18:59

High students and what

1:19:01

they had seen as far as Chris Dawson

1:19:04

and A.B. in the school yard together. Claire

1:19:07

Worsley was saying, well, all that is is evidence

1:19:09

of a counselling type relationship,

1:19:12

not evidence of a sexual relationship.

1:19:16

I wrote in my notes exactly at that point, drawing

1:19:18

a long bow. One person's counselling

1:19:21

is another person's grooming. Exactly.

1:19:24

The evidence was Chris Dawson standing

1:19:26

between A.B.'s legs very

1:19:29

close to her, in his office very, very

1:19:31

close to her

1:19:32

in the school yard. And so that might

1:19:35

be quite

1:19:36

a difficult hurdle for her to overcome.

1:19:39

Claire Worsley has a really hard job. She's

1:19:41

the public defender. Her job is to

1:19:44

defend people who have

1:19:46

every right to be considered

1:19:49

innocent until proven guilty. But

1:19:52

in this case, I have spent a bit of time wondering

1:19:55

why Chris Dawson thinks he

1:19:57

can defend this charge. sex

1:20:00

with a school girl. He's not denying

1:20:02

standing between her legs or having her sit

1:20:04

on his lap at school. It

1:20:07

seems

1:20:08

like a very difficult hill to climb. Who

1:20:10

knows?

1:20:11

Maybe he'll be found not guilty. And if that's

1:20:14

the case, Claire Wozli has done an incredible

1:20:16

job. Paul

1:20:17

Clare Wozli also came to some

1:20:19

of the events that had come up for the first time at this

1:20:21

trial. So that included, for example,

1:20:23

the topless photo evidence from

1:20:26

AB, the fact that that hadn't come up in

1:20:28

her previous statements and evidence. And

1:20:30

Claire Wozli was saying, well, that erodes AB's

1:20:33

credibility, the fact that she is

1:20:35

introducing these new facts. How can

1:20:37

we rely on the other things that she said?

1:20:40

The defense barrister also

1:20:43

got to the point of forensic disadvantage.

1:20:46

She said that

1:20:47

because of the passage of time, witnesses

1:20:49

now had trouble recalling events

1:20:52

and the

1:20:53

police had been unable to get key

1:20:55

records. One interesting point

1:20:57

she made at this point was that

1:21:00

the police and the prosecution can't

1:21:02

actually say when Kristallson

1:21:04

ceased being AB's sports

1:21:06

coaching teacher. That precise

1:21:09

moment is no longer in

1:21:11

the record. So the date for this charge

1:21:13

is when the school year wrapped up in December.

1:21:16

But Claire Wozli is suggesting that Kristallson

1:21:19

could actually have finished up as AB's teacher

1:21:21

earlier. And

1:21:22

therefore, if there was any sexual activity

1:21:25

later in that year, he may not have been

1:21:27

her teacher. Which seems like a very pernickety

1:21:30

point that Claire Wozli is trying to explore

1:21:32

here. That

1:21:33

on December 11, 1980, or on June the 5th, 1980, Kristallson was her teacher.

1:21:36

But from December the

1:21:41

13th on, and maybe even earlier than that,

1:21:43

he was no longer her teacher. And therefore,

1:21:46

this was not a criminal offence. That's

1:21:49

the result of the wording in that old-fashioned

1:21:51

section of the Crimes Act.

1:21:53

And that's why that act has now been

1:21:55

changed.

1:21:56

Now, you don't have to be in someone's

1:21:59

class. to be under

1:22:01

this way and so a teacher

1:22:03

can be convicted of unlawful

1:22:05

sex with a student if they

1:22:07

teach at that student's school at all.

1:22:10

Claire

1:22:10

Wozli said the forensic disadvantage

1:22:13

to Chris Dawson also extended to the

1:22:15

fact that there had been this globally

1:22:17

massive podcast The Teacher's Pet and

1:22:20

that some people had provided statements following

1:22:22

that podcast. Claire Wozli

1:22:25

Had these matters been investigated earlier

1:22:27

the witnesses wouldn't have heard in some detail

1:22:30

the allegations against the accused that

1:22:32

are the very subject of this trial including

1:22:35

the specific

1:22:35

time frame issues. Chris Dawson

1:22:39

Emma Blizzard got the chance to respond

1:22:41

to that issue of a disadvantage

1:22:44

and what she said was that it really was only speculation

1:22:47

that it was Dawson's side of the

1:22:49

equation disadvantage by the

1:22:51

passage of time. She said there was nothing

1:22:53

to actually show that he was really

1:22:56

harmed by that at all and perhaps

1:22:57

the passage of time has helped him. Perhaps

1:23:00

the absence of records has meant

1:23:02

that it's been more difficult to prosecute him. Claire

1:23:06

Wozli During

1:23:10

Emma Blizzard's closing she had to

1:23:12

stop and leave the court for a certain

1:23:14

period of time while a jury

1:23:16

came

1:23:17

in. Judge Sarah Huggett in this

1:23:19

very busy district court had a jury

1:23:22

deliberating for the entire duration

1:23:24

of this Dawson trial a jury in another matter.

1:23:27

That was the

1:23:28

alleged child sexual offending of

1:23:31

a swim coach called Paul Douglas Frost.

1:23:34

Paul Frost has been sitting outside

1:23:36

court LG1 at the Downing Centre waiting

1:23:38

for his verdict along with his barristers.

1:23:42

We've

1:23:42

seen the jury come in and out a few

1:23:44

times to deliver notes to the judge or

1:23:46

to ask questions.

1:23:47

During this interruption in Emma Blizzard's

1:23:50

closing the jury came in and said

1:23:52

that they were deadlocked

1:23:52

on a certain number of

1:23:55

the charges against Paul Frost. Judge

1:23:59

Huggett very patient. and kindly told

1:24:01

them to go back in there and keep deliberating,

1:24:03

that ultimately if they treated one another with

1:24:05

respect and they listened to one another's views, they

1:24:07

would get there in the end.

1:24:09

It wasn't until the following day that

1:24:12

Paul Douglas Frost was found guilty

1:24:14

of 43 child sexual abuse

1:24:16

offences. So while Sarah

1:24:19

Huggett is writing her judgement

1:24:21

on Chris Dawson,

1:24:22

she'll be sentencing Paul Frost.

1:24:25

He was handcuffed and taken into custody and

1:24:27

that's the last we saw of Paul Frost.

1:24:30

Well, this is just another example, a daily example

1:24:32

of the wheels of justice in the district court.

1:24:35

We're in the boiler room. It's like being

1:24:37

on a movie set. There's something happening over here and

1:24:39

there's cases overlapping over there, but the

1:24:42

weird template overlap with the

1:24:44

Dawson case is extraordinary. This

1:24:47

is something that's changed in the 43 years

1:24:50

since Chris Dawson was allegedly

1:24:52

a child sex offender. Paul Frost

1:24:55

is 47 years old now and

1:24:57

that goes against our cultural

1:24:59

stereotype of a pedophile being

1:25:01

an old man in a trench coat because

1:25:05

what's happening now is that young sex

1:25:07

offenders are being caught while they are

1:25:09

still young and that's because of

1:25:11

the immense social change in our lifetimes

1:25:14

that children are believed, that

1:25:16

there is mandatory reporting at schools,

1:25:19

at swim clubs, everywhere children

1:25:21

are. Adults are

1:25:24

required to do the right thing and

1:25:26

police actually investigate allegations

1:25:29

of sexual offending against children in real

1:25:31

time, not four decades later.

1:25:34

Judge Sarah Huggett obviously has a very

1:25:36

busy court, but at the end of the closing submission

1:25:39

she said that she would be back with a verdict

1:25:41

in just over two weeks time on

1:25:43

Wednesday, June 28. She

1:25:45

will also deliver her reasons for

1:25:48

her judgement at that time, so

1:25:50

we don't have long to wait before we find out

1:25:52

Chris Dawson's fate on this latest trial.

1:25:55

We'll be back as soon as possible after

1:25:57

that verdict to bring you the results and

1:25:59

of course course, the first to know will be the subscribers

1:26:02

to our daily news podcast, The Front,

1:26:04

which you can find wherever you got this podcast.

1:26:07

Thanks

1:26:15

for joining us for this episode of The Teacher's

1:26:17

Accuser. The episode was written in

1:26:19

part and narrated by National Chief Correspondent,

1:26:22

Hedley Thomas, with assistance and contributions

1:26:25

from National Crime Correspondent, David Murray,

1:26:28

Senior Writer, Matthew Condon, and me, Editorial

1:26:30

Director, Claire Harvey. Our producer

1:26:33

is Kristen Amiet. Audio production

1:26:35

is by Jasper Leake with assistance

1:26:37

from Lea Tsamaglou and Josh Burton. And

1:26:40

our theme music is by Wasabi Audio.

1:26:42

For all our reporting

1:26:44

and analysis, go to theteachersaccuser.com.au.

1:26:48

That's theteachersaccuser.com.au.

1:26:53

We'll also bring you live updates and

1:26:56

analysis in our daily news podcast,

1:26:58

The Front. Just search for The

1:27:00

Front wherever you get your podcasts.