WEBVTT - Dawson’s appeal goes down to the wire

0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:07.280
<v Speaker 1>From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Christa

0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:15.560
<v Speaker 1>naming it. It's Thursday May sixteenth. Four years. That's how

0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:17.880
<v Speaker 1>long taxpayers have got to enjoy the benefits of the

0:00:17.880 --> 0:00:21.919
<v Speaker 1>government's Stage three tax cuts. After that, higher tax rates

0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:25.599
<v Speaker 1>will kick back in. That's despite Treasurer Jim Chalmers big

0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:27.480
<v Speaker 1>cost of living pitch on Tuesday night.

0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:32.040
<v Speaker 2>We are easing pressure on Australians while investing in our people,

0:00:32.600 --> 0:00:34.760
<v Speaker 2>our economy and our future.

0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:38.840
<v Speaker 1>The Treasurer said on Wednesday. The government won't means test

0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:41.640
<v Speaker 1>the three hundred dollars energy rebates announced in the budget

0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:45.200
<v Speaker 1>because it'll take too long and cost too much. That's

0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:47.919
<v Speaker 1>despite his concession that well for your Australians with more

0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:52.400
<v Speaker 1>than one home could claim multiple subsidies. You can read

0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:55.880
<v Speaker 1>our experts ongoing analysis of Labour's third federal budget right

0:00:55.880 --> 0:01:00.480
<v Speaker 1>now at the Australian dot com dot au. The fight

0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:02.760
<v Speaker 1>over a contentious piece of evidence in the appeal of

0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:05.760
<v Speaker 1>Christopher Michael Dawson has gone down to the wire. The

0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:08.279
<v Speaker 1>former rugby league star has asked the New South Wales

0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:10.959
<v Speaker 1>Court of Appeal to overturn his conviction for the nineteen

0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:14.840
<v Speaker 1>eighty two murder of his first wife. In today's episode,

0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:31.000
<v Speaker 1>the Last Moments of Chris Dawson's latest attempt at freedom.

0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:34.880
<v Speaker 1>In twenty thirteen, Marilyn Dawson posted a picture to Facebook.

0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:38.399
<v Speaker 1>A friend, Ray Butler, had his arms slung around his

0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:41.640
<v Speaker 1>old footy mats, her husband Paul on the left, and

0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:45.440
<v Speaker 1>his twin brother Chris on the right. They're beaming at

0:01:45.480 --> 0:01:48.920
<v Speaker 1>the camera. They'd enjoyed similar reunions in the decades since

0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:51.520
<v Speaker 1>they shared the paddock at Gosford Rugby League Club, where

0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:55.120
<v Speaker 1>Butler was a manager. The twins played for the club

0:01:55.200 --> 0:02:02.560
<v Speaker 1>after they left the Newtown Jets. The Dawsons went on

0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:05.800
<v Speaker 1>to be teachers when their footy careers wound down, but

0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:08.280
<v Speaker 1>they stayed in touch, catching up at club events and

0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:12.160
<v Speaker 1>family gatherings. Their spouses Marilyn, who was married to Paul,

0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:15.560
<v Speaker 1>Chris's wife Lynn, and Ray's wife Sue got to know

0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:19.320
<v Speaker 1>each other too. When that picture was posted to Facebook

0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:22.760
<v Speaker 1>in twenty thirteen. Sue and Lynn had long since died,

0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:30.080
<v Speaker 1>but their stories are forever intertwined. Five years after that

0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:33.519
<v Speaker 1>picture was taken, Chris Dawson was charged with Lynn's murder.

0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:36.240
<v Speaker 1>We now referred to her as Lynn Simms at the

0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:39.720
<v Speaker 1>request of her family. She disappeared from Sydney's Northern Beaches

0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:42.720
<v Speaker 1>in nineteen eighty two, leaving her beloved four and two

0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:48.200
<v Speaker 1>year old daughters behind. Inquiries conducted by police and members

0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:51.079
<v Speaker 1>of Lynn's family failed to get answers about what happened

0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:53.720
<v Speaker 1>to the young mum, but the cold case was given

0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:57.000
<v Speaker 1>new life by The Australian's investigative podcast The Teacher's Pet,

0:02:57.240 --> 0:03:00.880
<v Speaker 1>created by our colleague Hedley Thomas. In twenty twenty two,

0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:02.400
<v Speaker 1>Dawson was brought.

0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:03.000
<v Speaker 2>To trial.

0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:05.880
<v Speaker 1>Decades in the making.

0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:10.160
<v Speaker 3>Chris Dawson found guilty of murdering wife Lynette at Bayview

0:03:10.320 --> 0:03:11.520
<v Speaker 3>forty years ago.

0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:16.080
<v Speaker 1>Justice Ian Harrison sentence Dawson to twenty four years in

0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:19.040
<v Speaker 1>prison for the crime, and now the former rugby league

0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:21.480
<v Speaker 1>star is hoping to have the conviction quashed in the

0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:30.000
<v Speaker 1>state's highest court. In hearing the case in twenty twenty two,

0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:33.520
<v Speaker 1>Justice Ian Harrison didn't dwell on the evidence of Ray Butlin,

0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:38.480
<v Speaker 1>the former rugby league player, told the court his wife Sue,

0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:41.320
<v Speaker 1>had seen a woman she believed to be Lynn Simms

0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:43.800
<v Speaker 1>at a fruit market where she worked in the weeks

0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:48.160
<v Speaker 1>after Lynne disappeared from Bayview. Butlin said Sue called Lynn's

0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:51.400
<v Speaker 1>name and walked towards her, but that the woman didn't respond.

0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:53.760
<v Speaker 1>He said she got into a car and drove off.

0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:58.320
<v Speaker 1>Here's what Justice Ian Harrison said about Ray Butlin's evidence.

0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:02.320
<v Speaker 3>It is a ma of no controversy in these proceedings

0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:07.120
<v Speaker 3>that Lynette Dawson did not drive. Miss Butlin's alleged sighting

0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:10.320
<v Speaker 3>fleeting at best would place Lynette Dawson at the Culnara

0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:14.040
<v Speaker 3>fruit Barn getting into a car and driving off. Mister

0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:17.560
<v Speaker 3>Dawson has submitted that that expression is capable of accommodating

0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:20.279
<v Speaker 3>the concept that she got into a car and was

0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:23.599
<v Speaker 3>driven off. It follows that the woman seen by Miss Butlin,

0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:27.919
<v Speaker 3>having regarded the evidences, highly unlikely to have been Lynette

0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:30.720
<v Speaker 3>Dawson if she drove away by herself.

0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:35.719
<v Speaker 1>But in court on Monday, Belinda Rigg, the public defender

0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:39.599
<v Speaker 1>representing Chris Dawson in his appeal, said Sue Butlin's story

0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:43.840
<v Speaker 1>was quite extraordinary. One of the grounds of Dawson's appeal

0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:46.719
<v Speaker 1>is that he was at a significant forensic disadvantage in

0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:49.719
<v Speaker 1>proving his innocence because of the long delay in bringing

0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:54.880
<v Speaker 1>charges almost four decades We've used voice actors to bring

0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:56.279
<v Speaker 1>you the words spoken in court.

0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:01.360
<v Speaker 2>That's a very clear egis sample of a deceased person

0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:05.240
<v Speaker 2>whose evidence was crucial. That very type of detail has

0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:08.200
<v Speaker 2>been lost because of the delay. All we have is

0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:11.360
<v Speaker 2>an impoverished hearsay account from her former husband.

0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:15.039
<v Speaker 1>The Teacher's Pet creator Hedley Thomas wrote on Monday that

0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:18.040
<v Speaker 1>placing such weight on Sue Butler's account was a fool's

0:05:18.160 --> 0:05:21.800
<v Speaker 1>errand if for no other reason than Ray Butlin openly

0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:24.919
<v Speaker 1>admitted his wife was known to tell tall stories for attention.

0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:28.040
<v Speaker 1>He said as much at an inquest into Lynn's death

0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:30.920
<v Speaker 1>in two thousand and three, and her account of seeing

0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:32.880
<v Speaker 1>Lynn Sims at the fruit Barn on the New South

0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:38.279
<v Speaker 1>Wales central coast was just that hearsay or gossip or fantasy.

0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:42.520
<v Speaker 1>There's no documentary evidence of Sue Butlin's sighting because she

0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:46.040
<v Speaker 1>never gave police an official statement. It's not even clear

0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:49.640
<v Speaker 1>if police ever spoke to her. Detective Sergeant Paul Magar

0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:52.200
<v Speaker 1>from the New South Wales Homicide Squad said he couldn't

0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:54.960
<v Speaker 1>recall if it was followed up during the investigation he

0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:59.320
<v Speaker 1>pursued in the early nineties, but yet it was Sue

0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:07.679
<v Speaker 1>Butlin's story that saw the investigation eventually abandoned. In making

0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:10.880
<v Speaker 1>his submissions to the court on Wednesday, Crown Prosecutor Brett

0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:14.200
<v Speaker 1>Hatfield said Justice Ian Harrison was right to dismiss Sue

0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:18.960
<v Speaker 1>Butlin's story. The reason Dawson cares so much about the

0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:22.279
<v Speaker 1>supposed sighting is because it would prove Lynn was alive

0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:26.320
<v Speaker 1>after January eighth, nineteen eighty two, when Harrison found she

0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:31.880
<v Speaker 1>was killed by Dawson. But Hatfield argued any accounts of sightings,

0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:35.000
<v Speaker 1>bank statements or phone calls from Lynn Dawson have come

0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:43.560
<v Speaker 1>either directly or indirectly from Chris Dawson. Don't forget. You

0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:46.719
<v Speaker 1>can access this kind of detailed news analysis and commentary

0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:49.560
<v Speaker 1>around the clock with a subscription to The Australian check

0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:51.560
<v Speaker 1>us out at the Australian dot com dot a U

0:06:52.400 --> 0:07:00.200
<v Speaker 1>We'll be back after this break. One of the most

0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:02.920
<v Speaker 1>important voices in this story is that of a teenage

0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:06.880
<v Speaker 1>babysitter known only as j C. Jace was a student

0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:10.160
<v Speaker 1>at school on Sydney's Northern Beaches where Chris Dawson taught

0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:14.080
<v Speaker 1>in the late nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties. She

0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:16.239
<v Speaker 1>came from a troubled home and lived at the house

0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:18.560
<v Speaker 1>at Bayview for a while at the end of nineteen

0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:23.280
<v Speaker 1>eighty one before Lynn Simms disappeared. She later married Chris

0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:28.840
<v Speaker 1>Dawson and they had a child together. Justice Ian Harrison

0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:31.960
<v Speaker 1>found the evidence given by j C a trial was credible,

0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:35.640
<v Speaker 1>and Chris Dawson's new barrister, Belinda Rigg, agreed he was

0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:40.400
<v Speaker 1>right to accept it, with one exception. Rigg argued on Monday,

0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:44.160
<v Speaker 1>Jac's account of Lynn's disappearance shouldn't be believed because her

0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:47.160
<v Speaker 1>story changed between the time she first gave a statement

0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:51.360
<v Speaker 1>to Belice and the trial in twenty twenty two. When

0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:54.640
<v Speaker 1>she spoke with Detective Damian Lune in nineteen ninety, j

0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:57.600
<v Speaker 1>C said words to the effect of Lin's gone come

0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:01.680
<v Speaker 1>back and stay with me. Some years later, she allegedly

0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:05.040
<v Speaker 1>told her friend, the author Rebecca Hazel, that Lynn had

0:08:05.080 --> 0:08:09.760
<v Speaker 1>taken some time away, and at trial, jac said Dawson

0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:13.080
<v Speaker 1>had collected her from a postgraduation trip to Southwest rox

0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:16.040
<v Speaker 1>with the intention of installing her at the family home

0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:19.160
<v Speaker 1>to function essentially as a wife to him and a

0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:24.040
<v Speaker 1>mother to his children. Rigg argued on Monday, Jace's original

0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:27.680
<v Speaker 1>account where she said Lynn's gone was the most accurate

0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:30.880
<v Speaker 1>because she'd repeatedly asked Dawson when Lynn would be returning.

0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:35.960
<v Speaker 1>But Justice Christine Adamson said those kinds of questions were

0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:39.640
<v Speaker 1>understandable for a teenager who wasn't at that time operating

0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:43.040
<v Speaker 1>under the assumption that Lynn was dead. We used voice

0:08:43.040 --> 0:08:45.080
<v Speaker 1>actors to bring you the words spoken in court.

0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:50.920
<v Speaker 4>Her evidence is that she asked the question when she

0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:54.480
<v Speaker 4>was absolutely at the end of her tether, because she

0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:57.920
<v Speaker 4>was eighteen years old and she's looking after a four

0:08:58.000 --> 0:09:01.080
<v Speaker 4>year old and a two year old twenty four and

0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:05.440
<v Speaker 4>living with the applicant. So the only reprieve from her

0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:07.959
<v Speaker 4>point of view is if the mother of these two

0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:12.040
<v Speaker 4>children comes back. It wasn't until later when j C

0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:15.080
<v Speaker 4>was in Queensland. I think that it occurred to her

0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:16.000
<v Speaker 4>as a possibility.

0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:20.040
<v Speaker 1>Justice Adamson is one of three Supreme Court justices hearing

0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:23.640
<v Speaker 1>Chris Dawson's appeal, along with Court of Appeal President Justice

0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:30.040
<v Speaker 1>Julie Ward and Justice Anthony Payne. Belinda Rigg said on

0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:34.320
<v Speaker 1>Wednesday there were significant issues with Jc's credibility. The public

0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:37.760
<v Speaker 1>defender said Jace may have been motivated to retaliate against

0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:41.680
<v Speaker 1>Dawson following their divorce, and said her claim that Dawson

0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:44.920
<v Speaker 1>had attempted to hire a hitman to kill Lynn was extreme.

0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:50.520
<v Speaker 4>If one looks at the fundamentals of her evidence, they

0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:54.960
<v Speaker 4>were all supported. She was very, very significantly corroborated on

0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:59.280
<v Speaker 4>pretty much everything that mattered except the hit man, which

0:09:59.360 --> 0:10:03.040
<v Speaker 4>was rejected, and the Crown accepts we shouldn't take into account.

0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:07.360
<v Speaker 1>Justice Adamson added, judges have to be really, really sure

0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:10.000
<v Speaker 1>when they're considering this kind of evidence.

0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:16.640
<v Speaker 4>Which may explain why his honor cautiously and appropriately didn't

0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:20.200
<v Speaker 4>accept that evidence but accepted everything else.

0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:26.280
<v Speaker 1>When he read his judgment over six hours in twenty

0:10:26.320 --> 0:10:30.120
<v Speaker 1>twenty two, Justice Ian Harrison said repeatedly that it should

0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:31.160
<v Speaker 1>be taken in full.

0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:35.480
<v Speaker 3>However, my ultimate findings take account of all of the

0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:37.559
<v Speaker 3>evidence considered as a whole.

0:10:38.920 --> 0:10:42.280
<v Speaker 1>But in wrapping up his submissions on Thursday, Crown Prosecutor

0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:46.080
<v Speaker 1>Brett Hatfield said, in appealing his conviction on grounds relating

0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:49.920
<v Speaker 1>to very specific findings within the seven hundred plus paragraph judgment,

0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:55.000
<v Speaker 1>Chris Dawson's representatives were doing the opposite. The argument is

0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:59.640
<v Speaker 1>doing precisely what his Honor said shouldn't be done. Compartmentalizing

0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:04.040
<v Speaker 1>different sections of finding. The three justices have retired to

0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:07.240
<v Speaker 1>consider their decision on the appeal. While they're weighing up

0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:10.840
<v Speaker 1>if Dawson's conviction should be quashed. He'll remain incarcerated at

0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:22.120
<v Speaker 1>the Clarence Correctional Center near Gosford. Peter Dutton will deliver

0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:25.800
<v Speaker 1>his Budget reply speech in Parliament tonight. The Opposition leader

0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:29.520
<v Speaker 1>will focus on key issues like migration, housing, community safety

0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:32.240
<v Speaker 1>and the cost of living crisis. Come back to the

0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:34.840
<v Speaker 1>front tomorrow for our analysis and follow all the action

0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:36.880
<v Speaker 1>at the Australian dot com dot au