WEBVTT - Chris Dawson’s last chance at freedom 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:06.720 From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Kristinamiot. 0:00:06.920 --> 0:00:13.640 It's Tuesday, June tenth, twenty twenty five. Newly minted Opposition 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:17.400 Energy and Admissions Production spokesman Dantien says he'll take his 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:21.280 time on the fate of the coalition's contentious net zero target. 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:23.880 He says there'll be a conversation. 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:27.240 About nuclear two, but any future models won't replicate the 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:34.800 one proposed by Ouster Liberal leader Peter Dutton. Criminal cases 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:38.559 involving Aboriginal people could be heard in closed court or 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:42.480 by female judicial officers. Those are the new guidelines given 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:45.520 to judges in a revised New South Wales bench book. 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:48.919 That exclusive story is live right now at the Australian 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:55.280 dot com dot au. Chris Dawson has launched a last 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:57.920 ditch bid to have his conviction for the nineteen eighty 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:01.160 two murder of his wife quashed. The High Court of 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:04.440 Australia will this week consider an application made by the 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:07.520 former rugby league star for special leave to appeal of 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:09.520 finding that upheld the conviction. 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:21.920 That's today's episode, Christopher Michael Dawson on the charge that 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:25.280 don are about eight January nineteen eighty two, at Dayview 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:28.200 or elsewhere in the state of New South Wales. 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:32.520 You did murder Lynette Dawson. I find you guilty. All 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:33.280 the message down. 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:37.400 This was a moment more than forty years in the making. 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:42.000 On a bright winter's day in twenty twenty two, New 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:45.920 South Wales Supreme Court Justice Ian Harrison found Chris Dawson 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:49.200 guilty of the murder of his first wife, Lynette Simms, 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:52.160 who vanished from their home at Bayview in the early 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:56.760 nineteen eighties. She was thirty three years old, a doting 0:01:56.840 --> 0:02:00.160 mum to two little girls, and a dedicated employee at 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:04.600 a childcare center on Sydney's Northern Beaches. Her fate was 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:08.600 unknown for decades until the Australians podcast The Teacher's Pet, 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:13.680 created by National Chief correspondent Hedley Thomas, exposed Lynnette's husband, 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:18.880 Chris Dawson, as a murderer. He's always maintained he played 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:22.800 no role in Lynette's disappearance, and claims she left the family, 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:26.320 her daughters, her husband and the home she loved of 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:31.800 her own accord. The story captured national and international attention, 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:36.640 and in late twenty eighteen, within months of the podcast release, 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:40.680 police arrested and charged Chris Dawson with Lynette's murder. 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:43.480 The key thing to come out of this divena is 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:48.400 that the police are now confident of a prosecution. Remember, 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:52.480 a coroner twice has recommended charges in this case and 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:55.919 the DPP in the eighties said no. But now they 0:02:56.000 --> 0:02:57.639 believe they have enough evidence. 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:04.040 More than three years after his arrest, Justice Ian Harrison 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:07.520 would find Chris Dawson murdered Lynette to replace her with 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:12.880 a teenage babysitter who'd become his second wife. Dawson was 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:16.160 sentenced by Justice Harrison to twenty four years in prison 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:18.840 with a non parole period of eighteen years. 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:23.760 I recognize that the unavoidable prospect is that mister Dawson 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:25.240 will probably die in jail. 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:27.960 Mister Dawson, would you please stand. 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:33.240 The new South Wales government introduced nobody no parole legislation 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:37.520 known as Lynn's Law in the months following Chris Dawson's conviction, 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:41.040 that means he won't be eligible for parole unless he 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:45.720 reveals the location of Lynette's remains to the authorities. In 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:48.680 twenty twenty four, Chris Dawson launched a bid to quash 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:51.000 his murder conviction in the New South Wales Court of 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:55.280 Criminal Appeals, arguing he suffered a forensic disadvantage in improving 0:03:55.360 --> 0:03:58.120 his innocence due to the long delay in bringing the 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:02.680 case to trial. He also argued there'd been a miscarriage 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:06.440 of justice due to Justice Harrison's reliance upon lies allegedly 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:09.880 told by Chris Dawson following Lynd's murder as evidence of 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:13.720 a consciousness of guilt, and that the verdict was unreasonable 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:18.080 because the Crown's case was wholly circumstantial and a hypothesis 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:23.599 consistent with Dawson's innocence wasn't excluded beyond a reasonable doubt. 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:28.039 Chris Dawson's barrister in the appeal, Belinda Rigg SC, told 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:30.960 the court transactions were made on Lynette's bank card in 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:34.360 the weeks following her disappearance, and that she'd called the 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:37.720 kiosk at the Northbridge Baths, where he worked part time 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:40.720 as a lifeguard, to let him know she needed some 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:44.520 time to herself, but the proof had been lost to time. 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:49.839 The three judge panel of Justices Julie Ward, Christine Adamson 0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:54.719 and Anthony Payne unanimously dismissed the appeal, writing that Justice 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:59.520 Harrison's reasoning was sound, that the Crown's circumstantial case was compelling, 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:03.240 and that Chris Dawson failed to establish that the forty 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:07.520 year delay in bringing charges had caused him a forensic disadvantage. 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:11.840 A voice actor is reading part of the Justice's reasons. 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:17.159 First, given the applicants different versions of events, it was 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:21.279 unclear whether the unavailability of certain bank card statements was relevant, 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:24.960 and in any case, it was his own failure to 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:28.520 retain those statements, not any delay that caused them to 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:33.800 be unavailable. Secondly, the lack of records showing the applicant 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:36.960 was working at the north Bridge Barths on nine January 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:41.560 nineteen eighty two caused no disadvantage, since the Crown conceded 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:45.920 the applicant was working there on that day. Thirdly, records 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:48.400 of phone calls made to the north Bridge Baths on 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:52.679 nine February nineteen eighty two were unavailable because of limited 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:56.560 technology at the time, not because of delay, and records 0:05:56.600 --> 0:05:59.120 of phone calls to the applicants house would not have 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:00.000 assisted the applace. 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:03.920 Now, Chris Dawson is taking the fight to the nation's 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:06.560 highest court in a last ditch effort. To have his 0:06:06.680 --> 0:06:13.040 murder conviction quashed. For two weeks every month, the High 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:15.960 Court of Australia sits in Canberra to consider a whole 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:20.640 range of civil and criminal matters. Chris Dawson has applied 0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:24.239 for special leave to appeal his murder conviction. That means 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:27.160 he's asking the High Court to grant him an appeal hearing. 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:31.159 If that application is granted on Thursday, he'll ask the 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:33.960 court to quash the twenty twenty two murder conviction made 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:37.200 by Justice Harrison and grant him a new trial. 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:41.960 Well, I think this is Chris Dawson's final role of 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:45.520 the dice in so far as his attempt to beat 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:49.159 the murder conviction of twenty twenty two Guys. 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:53.039 Headley Thomas is the Australian's National Chief correspondent and the 0:06:53.080 --> 0:06:55.200 creator of the Teacher's Pet podcast. 0:06:56.120 --> 0:07:00.280 Now he's seeking leave from the High Court to run 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:05.200 similar arguments that his conviction should be quashed, and much 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:08.680 of his argument turns on his claim that he had 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:13.400 a significant forensic disadvantage because of the age of the 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:19.000 case and the failure in his view of the police 0:07:19.240 --> 0:07:20.280 at certain stages. 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:24.080 A voice actor is reading part of the grounds of 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:26.560 the former school teacher's High Court application. 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:31.000 The Court of Criminal Appeal irred by failing to find 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:34.720 that the applicants trial miscarried because the trial judge failed 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:39.240 to find that the applicants suffered a significant forensic disadvantage. 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:41.760 The Court of Criminal Appeal. 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:45.720 Irred by failing to take the applicants significant forensic disadvantage 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:49.520 into account when considering whether the verdict was unreasonable and 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:51.840 unable to be supported by the evidence. 0:07:53.400 --> 0:07:58.040 Chris Dawson says significant witnesses, namely Sue Butlin, who purportedly 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:00.320 saw Lyn Dawson getting into a car at a fruit 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:03.360 shop on the New South Wales Central Coast, had died 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:06.160 by the time the case was tried by Justice Harrison 0:08:06.200 --> 0:08:10.280 alone in twenty twenty two, and that important documents from 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:14.040 the abandoned initial homicide investigation had been lost. 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:15.680 We have in. 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:19.880 Sue Butlin, the wife of a guy called Ray Butlin. 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:24.920 Ray Butlin was a rugby league coach on the Central 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:29.000 Coast and he got to know and coach the Dawson twins, 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:32.800 Christ and Paul after they'd finished their professional careers with 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:37.160 the Newtown Jets. The version that we have from either 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:42.880 Chris Dawson or Ray Butlin, is that Sue Butlin saw 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:48.000 a woman she believed was Lynn Simms in a vehicle 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:52.480 at a fruit barn on the Central Coast shortly after 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:58.040 the Crown says Chris Dawson murdered Lynn in the home 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:02.319 at Bayview on the Northern Beaches. Now, we don't have 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:07.520 any direct evidence from Sue Butlin about that. What we 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:13.880 do know because Ray Butlin disclosed this in the inquest 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:20.160 where he was questioned about his wife's purported sighting of Lynn, 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:25.319 and Ray Butlin said of his own wife, who had 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:28.760 been dead for some years, that she did have a 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:34.800 tendency to exaggerate things and she might. 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:37.640 Have embellished the story. 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:40.480 However, he felt sure that if she were on the stand, 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:44.959 she would say, yeah, I saw Lynn. Now, the problem 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:50.119 here is that the police investigation in the early nineties 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:55.240 stopped as a result of Chris Dawson telling homicide detectives 0:09:55.600 --> 0:10:00.080 that his mate's wife saw Lynn. But there's no no 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:06.200 evidence of any attempt by those homicide detectives to try 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:12.280 to corroborate Chris's claims that his mate's wife saw Lynn. 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:16.760 So the police didn't go directly to Sue Butler, who 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:20.400 was still alive in nineteen ninety two, to take any 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:21.640 kind of statement from her. 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:23.040 So there's nothing in writing. 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:26.480 There's just this hearsay account, and this is being held 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:29.920 up as one of the pieces of evidence that was 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:33.960 crucial to Chris Dawson's defense and should have been obtained. 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:39.120 And I think that many people who have followed this 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:43.240 case close he would think that, yes, the police should 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:48.120 have got a statement, but that the police failures in 0:10:48.160 --> 0:10:50.680 this case early on cut both ways. 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:53.920 It is strongly arguable. 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:56.480 In my view that if police had done a much 0:10:56.520 --> 0:11:01.240 better job in the early stages after Lynn's disappearedearrance, then 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:05.559 Chris Dawson would have been prosecuted and convicted of murder 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:10.240 very early on. So it doesn't necessarily follow that he 0:11:10.280 --> 0:11:13.720 has been denied justice. It may be that he's actually 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:17.920 experienced freedom because of the police failures and the delays 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:18.679 in doing things. 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:24.640 The application argues there's no onus on Chris Dawson to 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:29.160 establish the delay certainly caused him a significant forensic disadvantage, 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:32.120 only that there's a real possibility that it did. 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:37.160 It is unnecessary that each individual lost witness or document 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:41.360 singly would have demonstrated innocence, but rather that collectively for 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:45.480 lost evidence would have likely strengthened the applicant's position at trial. 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:49.520 John Paul Cashen is a partner at law firm Thompson Gear, 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:51.280 which advises the Australian. 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:54.920 It's an interesting one because in Australia we don't have 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:59.440 a statute of limitations. Here someone's committed murder or any 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:04.000 serious efets, really we can bring a charge against them ten, twenty, thirty, 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:07.520 forty fifty years after the fact, and I think courts 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:11.200 are reluctant to say that the mere fact that there's 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:13.960 a delay means that someone can't be brought to justice. 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:16.480 And what happened was in the late nineteen eighties there 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:19.160 was a case called Longman where the charges has been 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:23.360 brought about twenty years after the alleged defending and in 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:25.880 that case the court warned the jury that there was 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:30.120 a real risk that the evidence was unreliable and that 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:32.560 led to an acquittal. And there was a feeling after 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:36.600 that case that it shifted the boundary too much in 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:40.000 the favor of acquittals, and so they changed the law 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:43.160 to bring it back a little more in favor of 0:12:43.520 --> 0:12:46.160 the policy of well, just because there's a delay doesn't 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:49.880 mean you can't face trial. And that's what this appeal 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:53.280 is really all about. In this case, there's no doubt 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:59.160 that Dawson has suffered some prejudice because of certain evidence 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:01.640 going missing, and so he said, well, he was never 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:04.360 able to truly test that, and the Court of Appeal 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:07.200 ultimately has to draw a line and say, well, did 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:10.800 you suffer a significant forensic disadvantage because of these things? 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:12.960 And the Court of Appeal said no, it was just 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:15.680 speculative that these things would have helped him. There wasn't 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:19.360 an actual prejudice, and he's upset about that. He says, now, no, 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:21.960 that puts the test too high, that shifts the burden 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:25.920 too far in favor of conviction, and that's really the 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:28.080 essence of this appeal before the High Court. Now where 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:29.000 do we draw that line? 0:13:32.600 --> 0:13:35.360 Chris Dawson also says the Court of Criminal Appeal got 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:38.439 it wrong when it upheld Justice Harrison's reliance on lies 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:42.000 allegedly told by him as evidence of consciousness of guilt 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:44.480 because he had other reasons to lie. 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:48.800 One of the key parts of the first appeal was 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:53.280 that Justice Harrison had incorrectly looked at the lies told 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:56.840 by Chris Dawson. So one of the key ways a 0:13:56.840 --> 0:14:00.120 person gets convicted is when they led to police, and 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:03.440 those lies are evidence of what we call consciousness of guilt. 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:08.520 And sometimes a lie will be strong consciousness of guilt, 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:11.480 but sometimes people lie for other reasons. And indeed, in 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:15.000 Dawson's case, there was a suggestion that he might have 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:18.160 been lying about certain things, not because he'd killed Lynette, 0:14:18.760 --> 0:14:21.680 but because he was embarrassed or trying to hide the 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:25.920 fact that he was having a relationship with his former student. 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:29.800 And the Court of Appeal found that Justice Harrison didn't 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:33.480 deal with those lies and that consciousness of guilt appropriately, 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:36.240 So they did find that he'd made an error in 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:40.080 relation to those questions, but they have a broad discretion 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:42.960 to say, well, even if the trial judge made an error, 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:46.800 we're not going to overturn his decision unless we find 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:50.440 that a substantial miscarriage of justice occurred, and in this 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:53.800 particular case, they found that there wasn't a substantial miscarriage 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:57.600 of justice. So that will also form part of the 0:14:57.880 --> 0:15:00.160 High Court judgment. And it sort of rolls into that 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:03.600 same question about well, what is the total cumulative amount 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:07.920 of prejudice suffered by the accused in this case? Is 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:10.240 it enough to overturn his conviction? 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:14.760 Coming up? 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:34.400 Why this isn't Chris Dawson's first High Court rodeo. This 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:37.240 isn't the first time Chris Dawson has made an application 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:41.560 to the High Court after his arrest. Applications for a 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:45.040 permanent stay of proceedings were dismissed by Justice Elizabeth Fulton 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:47.880 in the Supreme Court of New South Wales and later 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:51.360 by the Court of Criminal Appeal. Here's Headley Thomas. 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:57.320 Well before the murder trial in twenty twenty two, Chris 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:01.440 Dawson was determined to try to avoid trial altogether, and 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:05.400 he wanted to persuade the courts that he could not 0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:09.520 get a fair trial as a result of failures of 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:14.040 police to find evidence that he says, would have been 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:18.680 in his favor that would have shown in his claims 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:23.040 that his wife Lynn had not been murdered, that in fact, 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:26.320 she had probably started a new life. And secondly, he 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:28.880 claimed that he couldn't get a fair trial because too 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:32.680 many people had listened to or heard about the Teacher's 0:16:32.760 --> 0:16:36.600 pet and had a fixed view of his guilt. Now 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:42.120 he failed in those attempts to get a permanent stay 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:45.720 of proceedings and his final bid was to the High 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:50.640 Court and that was denied shortly before the murder trial 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:54.960 in twenty twenty two. When Chris Dawson was trying to 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:59.800 avoid trial altogether, he relied on a leading criminal defense lawyer, 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:04.680 Phillip Bolton, and then for the criminal trial, Philip Bolton 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:09.560 was not in that. In fact, that was run for 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:13.600 christ Dawson by a defense lawyer called Pauline David, and she. 0:17:13.680 --> 0:17:16.280 Had known Dawson many years earlier. 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:20.600 In fact, when Chris Dawson was interviewed by homicide detectives 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:24.840 in nineteen ninety two on the Gold Coast and much younger, 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:30.720 Pauline David was Chris Dawson's solicitor during that interview. Then 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:34.720 we go forward thirty years. Philip Bolton didn't get involved 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:38.280 in the murder trial to our knowledge. However, Pauline David 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:40.639 at the end of the trial was appointed to the 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:43.919 District Court of New South Wales as a judge. So 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:48.520 Philip Bolton has returned and he's running this appeal to 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:52.160 the High Court, and in documents that have been filed 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:57.080 he has highlighted what he says were numerous errors by 0:17:57.160 --> 0:18:01.960 the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal in its findings, 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:06.639 which said that Chris Dawson should not succeed with his 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:15.160 bid for freedom. 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:18.840 Headley Thomas is The Australian's national Chief correspondent. You can 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:21.640 listen to the Teacher's pet and access the nation's best 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:24.720 journalism anytime at the Australian dot com dot au