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Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Christa

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Speaker 1: naming it. It's Thursday May sixteenth. Four years. That's how

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Speaker 1: long taxpayers have got to enjoy the benefits of the

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Speaker 1: government's Stage three tax cuts. After that, higher tax rates

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Speaker 1: will kick back in. That's despite Treasurer Jim Chalmers big

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Speaker 1: cost of living pitch on Tuesday night.

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Speaker 2: We are easing pressure on Australians while investing in our people,

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Speaker 2: our economy and our future.

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Speaker 1: The Treasurer said on Wednesday. The government won't means test

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Speaker 1: the three hundred dollars energy rebates announced in the budget

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Speaker 1: because it'll take too long and cost too much. That's

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Speaker 1: despite his concession that well for your Australians with more

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Speaker 1: than one home could claim multiple subsidies. You can read

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Speaker 1: our experts ongoing analysis of Labour's third federal budget right

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Speaker 1: now at the Australian dot com dot au. The fight

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Speaker 1: over a contentious piece of evidence in the appeal of

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Speaker 1: Christopher Michael Dawson has gone down to the wire. The

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Speaker 1: former rugby league star has asked the New South Wales

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Speaker 1: Court of Appeal to overturn his conviction for the nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty two murder of his first wife. In today's episode,

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Speaker 1: the Last Moments of Chris Dawson's latest attempt at freedom.

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Speaker 1: In twenty thirteen, Marilyn Dawson posted a picture to Facebook.

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Speaker 1: A friend, Ray Butler, had his arms slung around his

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Speaker 1: old footy mats, her husband Paul on the left, and

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Speaker 1: his twin brother Chris on the right. They're beaming at

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Speaker 1: the camera. They'd enjoyed similar reunions in the decades since

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Speaker 1: they shared the paddock at Gosford Rugby League Club, where

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Speaker 1: Butler was a manager. The twins played for the club

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Speaker 1: after they left the Newtown Jets. The Dawsons went on

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Speaker 1: to be teachers when their footy careers wound down, but

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Speaker 1: they stayed in touch, catching up at club events and

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Speaker 1: family gatherings. Their spouses Marilyn, who was married to Paul,

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Speaker 1: Chris's wife Lynn, and Ray's wife Sue got to know

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Speaker 1: each other too. When that picture was posted to Facebook

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Speaker 1: in twenty thirteen. Sue and Lynn had long since died,

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Speaker 1: but their stories are forever intertwined. Five years after that

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Speaker 1: picture was taken, Chris Dawson was charged with Lynn's murder.

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Speaker 1: We now referred to her as Lynn Simms at the

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Speaker 1: request of her family. She disappeared from Sydney's Northern Beaches

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Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty two, leaving her beloved four and two

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Speaker 1: year old daughters behind. Inquiries conducted by police and members

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Speaker 1: of Lynn's family failed to get answers about what happened

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Speaker 1: to the young mum, but the cold case was given

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Speaker 1: new life by The Australian's investigative podcast The Teacher's Pet,

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Speaker 1: created by our colleague Hedley Thomas. In twenty twenty two,

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Speaker 1: Dawson was brought.

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Speaker 2: To trial.

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Speaker 1: Decades in the making.

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Speaker 3: Chris Dawson found guilty of murdering wife Lynette at Bayview

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Speaker 3: forty years ago.

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Speaker 1: Justice Ian Harrison sentence Dawson to twenty four years in

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Speaker 1: prison for the crime, and now the former rugby league

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Speaker 1: star is hoping to have the conviction quashed in the

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Speaker 1: state's highest court. In hearing the case in twenty twenty two,

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Speaker 1: Justice Ian Harrison didn't dwell on the evidence of Ray Butlin,

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Speaker 1: the former rugby league player, told the court his wife Sue,

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Speaker 1: had seen a woman she believed to be Lynn Simms

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Speaker 1: at a fruit market where she worked in the weeks

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Speaker 1: after Lynne disappeared from Bayview. Butlin said Sue called Lynn's

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Speaker 1: name and walked towards her, but that the woman didn't respond.

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Speaker 1: He said she got into a car and drove off.

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Speaker 1: Here's what Justice Ian Harrison said about Ray Butlin's evidence.

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Speaker 3: It is a ma of no controversy in these proceedings

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Speaker 3: that Lynette Dawson did not drive. Miss Butlin's alleged sighting

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Speaker 3: fleeting at best would place Lynette Dawson at the Culnara

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Speaker 3: fruit Barn getting into a car and driving off. Mister

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Speaker 3: Dawson has submitted that that expression is capable of accommodating

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Speaker 3: the concept that she got into a car and was

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Speaker 3: driven off. It follows that the woman seen by Miss Butlin,

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Speaker 3: having regarded the evidences, highly unlikely to have been Lynette

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Speaker 3: Dawson if she drove away by herself.

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Speaker 1: But in court on Monday, Belinda Rigg, the public defender

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Speaker 1: representing Chris Dawson in his appeal, said Sue Butlin's story

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Speaker 1: was quite extraordinary. One of the grounds of Dawson's appeal

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Speaker 1: is that he was at a significant forensic disadvantage in

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Speaker 1: proving his innocence because of the long delay in bringing

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Speaker 1: charges almost four decades We've used voice actors to bring

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Speaker 1: you the words spoken in court.

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Speaker 2: That's a very clear egis sample of a deceased person

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Speaker 2: whose evidence was crucial. That very type of detail has

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Speaker 2: been lost because of the delay. All we have is

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Speaker 2: an impoverished hearsay account from her former husband.

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Speaker 1: The Teacher's Pet creator Hedley Thomas wrote on Monday that

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Speaker 1: placing such weight on Sue Butler's account was a fool's

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Speaker 1: errand if for no other reason than Ray Butlin openly

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Speaker 1: admitted his wife was known to tell tall stories for attention.

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Speaker 1: He said as much at an inquest into Lynn's death

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Speaker 1: in two thousand and three, and her account of seeing

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Speaker 1: Lynn Sims at the fruit Barn on the New South

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Speaker 1: Wales central coast was just that hearsay or gossip or fantasy.

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Speaker 1: There's no documentary evidence of Sue Butlin's sighting because she

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Speaker 1: never gave police an official statement. It's not even clear

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Speaker 1: if police ever spoke to her. Detective Sergeant Paul Magar

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Speaker 1: from the New South Wales Homicide Squad said he couldn't

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Speaker 1: recall if it was followed up during the investigation he

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Speaker 1: pursued in the early nineties, but yet it was Sue

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Speaker 1: Butlin's story that saw the investigation eventually abandoned. In making

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Speaker 1: his submissions to the court on Wednesday, Crown Prosecutor Brett

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Speaker 1: Hatfield said Justice Ian Harrison was right to dismiss Sue

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Speaker 1: Butlin's story. The reason Dawson cares so much about the

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Speaker 1: supposed sighting is because it would prove Lynn was alive

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Speaker 1: after January eighth, nineteen eighty two, when Harrison found she

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Speaker 1: was killed by Dawson. But Hatfield argued any accounts of sightings,

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Speaker 1: bank statements or phone calls from Lynn Dawson have come

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Speaker 1: either directly or indirectly from Chris Dawson. Don't forget. You

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Speaker 1: can access this kind of detailed news analysis and commentary

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Speaker 1: around the clock with a subscription to The Australian check

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Speaker 1: us out at the Australian dot com dot a U

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Speaker 1: We'll be back after this break. One of the most

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Speaker 1: important voices in this story is that of a teenage

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Speaker 1: babysitter known only as j C. Jace was a student

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Speaker 1: at school on Sydney's Northern Beaches where Chris Dawson taught

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Speaker 1: in the late nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties. She

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Speaker 1: came from a troubled home and lived at the house

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Speaker 1: at Bayview for a while at the end of nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty one before Lynn Simms disappeared. She later married Chris

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Speaker 1: Dawson and they had a child together. Justice Ian Harrison

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Speaker 1: found the evidence given by j C a trial was credible,

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Speaker 1: and Chris Dawson's new barrister, Belinda Rigg, agreed he was

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Speaker 1: right to accept it, with one exception. Rigg argued on Monday,

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Speaker 1: Jac's account of Lynn's disappearance shouldn't be believed because her

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Speaker 1: story changed between the time she first gave a statement

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Speaker 1: to Belice and the trial in twenty twenty two. When

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Speaker 1: she spoke with Detective Damian Lune in nineteen ninety, j

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Speaker 1: C said words to the effect of Lin's gone come

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Speaker 1: back and stay with me. Some years later, she allegedly

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Speaker 1: told her friend, the author Rebecca Hazel, that Lynn had

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Speaker 1: taken some time away, and at trial, jac said Dawson

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Speaker 1: had collected her from a postgraduation trip to Southwest rox

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Speaker 1: with the intention of installing her at the family home

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Speaker 1: to function essentially as a wife to him and a

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Speaker 1: mother to his children. Rigg argued on Monday, Jace's original

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Speaker 1: account where she said Lynn's gone was the most accurate

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Speaker 1: because she'd repeatedly asked Dawson when Lynn would be returning.

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Speaker 1: But Justice Christine Adamson said those kinds of questions were

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Speaker 1: understandable for a teenager who wasn't at that time operating

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Speaker 1: under the assumption that Lynn was dead. We used voice

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Speaker 1: actors to bring you the words spoken in court.

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Speaker 4: Her evidence is that she asked the question when she

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Speaker 4: was absolutely at the end of her tether, because she

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Speaker 4: was eighteen years old and she's looking after a four

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Speaker 4: year old and a two year old twenty four and

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Speaker 4: living with the applicant. So the only reprieve from her

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Speaker 4: point of view is if the mother of these two

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Speaker 4: children comes back. It wasn't until later when j C

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Speaker 4: was in Queensland. I think that it occurred to her

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Speaker 4: as a possibility.

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Speaker 1: Justice Adamson is one of three Supreme Court justices hearing

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Speaker 1: Chris Dawson's appeal, along with Court of Appeal President Justice

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Speaker 1: Julie Ward and Justice Anthony Payne. Belinda Rigg said on

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Speaker 1: Wednesday there were significant issues with Jc's credibility. The public

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Speaker 1: defender said Jace may have been motivated to retaliate against

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Speaker 1: Dawson following their divorce, and said her claim that Dawson

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Speaker 1: had attempted to hire a hitman to kill Lynn was extreme.

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Speaker 4: If one looks at the fundamentals of her evidence, they

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Speaker 4: were all supported. She was very, very significantly corroborated on

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Speaker 4: pretty much everything that mattered except the hit man, which

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Speaker 4: was rejected, and the Crown accepts we shouldn't take into account.

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Speaker 1: Justice Adamson added, judges have to be really, really sure

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Speaker 1: when they're considering this kind of evidence.

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Speaker 4: Which may explain why his honor cautiously and appropriately didn't

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Speaker 4: accept that evidence but accepted everything else.

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Speaker 1: When he read his judgment over six hours in twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty two, Justice Ian Harrison said repeatedly that it should

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Speaker 1: be taken in full.

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Speaker 3: However, my ultimate findings take account of all of the

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Speaker 3: evidence considered as a whole.

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Speaker 1: But in wrapping up his submissions on Thursday, Crown Prosecutor

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Speaker 1: Brett Hatfield said, in appealing his conviction on grounds relating

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Speaker 1: to very specific findings within the seven hundred plus paragraph judgment,

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Speaker 1: Chris Dawson's representatives were doing the opposite. The argument is

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Speaker 1: doing precisely what his Honor said shouldn't be done. Compartmentalizing

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Speaker 1: different sections of finding. The three justices have retired to

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Speaker 1: consider their decision on the appeal. While they're weighing up

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Speaker 1: if Dawson's conviction should be quashed. He'll remain incarcerated at

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Speaker 1: the Clarence Correctional Center near Gosford. Peter Dutton will deliver

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Speaker 1: his Budget reply speech in Parliament tonight. The Opposition leader

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Speaker 1: will focus on key issues like migration, housing, community safety

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Speaker 1: and the cost of living crisis. Come back to the

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Speaker 1: front tomorrow for our analysis and follow all the action

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Speaker 1: at the Australian dot com dot au