Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Christa
Speaker 1: naming it. It's Thursday May sixteenth. Four years. That's how
Speaker 1: long taxpayers have got to enjoy the benefits of the
Speaker 1: government's Stage three tax cuts. After that, higher tax rates
Speaker 1: will kick back in. That's despite Treasurer Jim Chalmers big
Speaker 1: cost of living pitch on Tuesday night.
Speaker 2: We are easing pressure on Australians while investing in our people,
Speaker 2: our economy and our future.
Speaker 1: The Treasurer said on Wednesday. The government won't means test
Speaker 1: the three hundred dollars energy rebates announced in the budget
Speaker 1: because it'll take too long and cost too much. That's
Speaker 1: despite his concession that well for your Australians with more
Speaker 1: than one home could claim multiple subsidies. You can read
Speaker 1: our experts ongoing analysis of Labour's third federal budget right
Speaker 1: now at the Australian dot com dot au. The fight
Speaker 1: over a contentious piece of evidence in the appeal of
Speaker 1: Christopher Michael Dawson has gone down to the wire. The
Speaker 1: former rugby league star has asked the New South Wales
Speaker 1: Court of Appeal to overturn his conviction for the nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty two murder of his first wife. In today's episode,
Speaker 1: the Last Moments of Chris Dawson's latest attempt at freedom.
Speaker 1: In twenty thirteen, Marilyn Dawson posted a picture to Facebook.
Speaker 1: A friend, Ray Butler, had his arms slung around his
Speaker 1: old footy mats, her husband Paul on the left, and
Speaker 1: his twin brother Chris on the right. They're beaming at
Speaker 1: the camera. They'd enjoyed similar reunions in the decades since
Speaker 1: they shared the paddock at Gosford Rugby League Club, where
Speaker 1: Butler was a manager. The twins played for the club
Speaker 1: after they left the Newtown Jets. The Dawsons went on
Speaker 1: to be teachers when their footy careers wound down, but
Speaker 1: they stayed in touch, catching up at club events and
Speaker 1: family gatherings. Their spouses Marilyn, who was married to Paul,
Speaker 1: Chris's wife Lynn, and Ray's wife Sue got to know
Speaker 1: each other too. When that picture was posted to Facebook
Speaker 1: in twenty thirteen. Sue and Lynn had long since died,
Speaker 1: but their stories are forever intertwined. Five years after that
Speaker 1: picture was taken, Chris Dawson was charged with Lynn's murder.
Speaker 1: We now referred to her as Lynn Simms at the
Speaker 1: request of her family. She disappeared from Sydney's Northern Beaches
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty two, leaving her beloved four and two
Speaker 1: year old daughters behind. Inquiries conducted by police and members
Speaker 1: of Lynn's family failed to get answers about what happened
Speaker 1: to the young mum, but the cold case was given
Speaker 1: new life by The Australian's investigative podcast The Teacher's Pet,
Speaker 1: created by our colleague Hedley Thomas. In twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: Dawson was brought.
Speaker 2: To trial.
Speaker 1: Decades in the making.
Speaker 3: Chris Dawson found guilty of murdering wife Lynette at Bayview
Speaker 3: forty years ago.
Speaker 1: Justice Ian Harrison sentence Dawson to twenty four years in
Speaker 1: prison for the crime, and now the former rugby league
Speaker 1: star is hoping to have the conviction quashed in the
Speaker 1: state's highest court. In hearing the case in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: Justice Ian Harrison didn't dwell on the evidence of Ray Butlin,
Speaker 1: the former rugby league player, told the court his wife Sue,
Speaker 1: had seen a woman she believed to be Lynn Simms
Speaker 1: at a fruit market where she worked in the weeks
Speaker 1: after Lynne disappeared from Bayview. Butlin said Sue called Lynn's
Speaker 1: name and walked towards her, but that the woman didn't respond.
Speaker 1: He said she got into a car and drove off.
Speaker 1: Here's what Justice Ian Harrison said about Ray Butlin's evidence.
Speaker 3: It is a ma of no controversy in these proceedings
Speaker 3: that Lynette Dawson did not drive. Miss Butlin's alleged sighting
Speaker 3: fleeting at best would place Lynette Dawson at the Culnara
Speaker 3: fruit Barn getting into a car and driving off. Mister
Speaker 3: Dawson has submitted that that expression is capable of accommodating
Speaker 3: the concept that she got into a car and was
Speaker 3: driven off. It follows that the woman seen by Miss Butlin,
Speaker 3: having regarded the evidences, highly unlikely to have been Lynette
Speaker 3: Dawson if she drove away by herself.
Speaker 1: But in court on Monday, Belinda Rigg, the public defender
Speaker 1: representing Chris Dawson in his appeal, said Sue Butlin's story
Speaker 1: was quite extraordinary. One of the grounds of Dawson's appeal
Speaker 1: is that he was at a significant forensic disadvantage in
Speaker 1: proving his innocence because of the long delay in bringing
Speaker 1: charges almost four decades We've used voice actors to bring
Speaker 1: you the words spoken in court.
Speaker 2: That's a very clear egis sample of a deceased person
Speaker 2: whose evidence was crucial. That very type of detail has
Speaker 2: been lost because of the delay. All we have is
Speaker 2: an impoverished hearsay account from her former husband.
Speaker 1: The Teacher's Pet creator Hedley Thomas wrote on Monday that
Speaker 1: placing such weight on Sue Butler's account was a fool's
Speaker 1: errand if for no other reason than Ray Butlin openly
Speaker 1: admitted his wife was known to tell tall stories for attention.
Speaker 1: He said as much at an inquest into Lynn's death
Speaker 1: in two thousand and three, and her account of seeing
Speaker 1: Lynn Sims at the fruit Barn on the New South
Speaker 1: Wales central coast was just that hearsay or gossip or fantasy.
Speaker 1: There's no documentary evidence of Sue Butlin's sighting because she
Speaker 1: never gave police an official statement. It's not even clear
Speaker 1: if police ever spoke to her. Detective Sergeant Paul Magar
Speaker 1: from the New South Wales Homicide Squad said he couldn't
Speaker 1: recall if it was followed up during the investigation he
Speaker 1: pursued in the early nineties, but yet it was Sue
Speaker 1: Butlin's story that saw the investigation eventually abandoned. In making
Speaker 1: his submissions to the court on Wednesday, Crown Prosecutor Brett
Speaker 1: Hatfield said Justice Ian Harrison was right to dismiss Sue
Speaker 1: Butlin's story. The reason Dawson cares so much about the
Speaker 1: supposed sighting is because it would prove Lynn was alive
Speaker 1: after January eighth, nineteen eighty two, when Harrison found she
Speaker 1: was killed by Dawson. But Hatfield argued any accounts of sightings,
Speaker 1: bank statements or phone calls from Lynn Dawson have come
Speaker 1: either directly or indirectly from Chris Dawson. Don't forget. You
Speaker 1: can access this kind of detailed news analysis and commentary
Speaker 1: around the clock with a subscription to The Australian check
Speaker 1: us out at the Australian dot com dot a U
Speaker 1: We'll be back after this break. One of the most
Speaker 1: important voices in this story is that of a teenage
Speaker 1: babysitter known only as j C. Jace was a student
Speaker 1: at school on Sydney's Northern Beaches where Chris Dawson taught
Speaker 1: in the late nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties. She
Speaker 1: came from a troubled home and lived at the house
Speaker 1: at Bayview for a while at the end of nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty one before Lynn Simms disappeared. She later married Chris
Speaker 1: Dawson and they had a child together. Justice Ian Harrison
Speaker 1: found the evidence given by j C a trial was credible,
Speaker 1: and Chris Dawson's new barrister, Belinda Rigg, agreed he was
Speaker 1: right to accept it, with one exception. Rigg argued on Monday,
Speaker 1: Jac's account of Lynn's disappearance shouldn't be believed because her
Speaker 1: story changed between the time she first gave a statement
Speaker 1: to Belice and the trial in twenty twenty two. When
Speaker 1: she spoke with Detective Damian Lune in nineteen ninety, j
Speaker 1: C said words to the effect of Lin's gone come
Speaker 1: back and stay with me. Some years later, she allegedly
Speaker 1: told her friend, the author Rebecca Hazel, that Lynn had
Speaker 1: taken some time away, and at trial, jac said Dawson
Speaker 1: had collected her from a postgraduation trip to Southwest rox
Speaker 1: with the intention of installing her at the family home
Speaker 1: to function essentially as a wife to him and a
Speaker 1: mother to his children. Rigg argued on Monday, Jace's original
Speaker 1: account where she said Lynn's gone was the most accurate
Speaker 1: because she'd repeatedly asked Dawson when Lynn would be returning.
Speaker 1: But Justice Christine Adamson said those kinds of questions were
Speaker 1: understandable for a teenager who wasn't at that time operating
Speaker 1: under the assumption that Lynn was dead. We used voice
Speaker 1: actors to bring you the words spoken in court.
Speaker 4: Her evidence is that she asked the question when she
Speaker 4: was absolutely at the end of her tether, because she
Speaker 4: was eighteen years old and she's looking after a four
Speaker 4: year old and a two year old twenty four and
Speaker 4: living with the applicant. So the only reprieve from her
Speaker 4: point of view is if the mother of these two
Speaker 4: children comes back. It wasn't until later when j C
Speaker 4: was in Queensland. I think that it occurred to her
Speaker 4: as a possibility.
Speaker 1: Justice Adamson is one of three Supreme Court justices hearing
Speaker 1: Chris Dawson's appeal, along with Court of Appeal President Justice
Speaker 1: Julie Ward and Justice Anthony Payne. Belinda Rigg said on
Speaker 1: Wednesday there were significant issues with Jc's credibility. The public
Speaker 1: defender said Jace may have been motivated to retaliate against
Speaker 1: Dawson following their divorce, and said her claim that Dawson
Speaker 1: had attempted to hire a hitman to kill Lynn was extreme.
Speaker 4: If one looks at the fundamentals of her evidence, they
Speaker 4: were all supported. She was very, very significantly corroborated on
Speaker 4: pretty much everything that mattered except the hit man, which
Speaker 4: was rejected, and the Crown accepts we shouldn't take into account.
Speaker 1: Justice Adamson added, judges have to be really, really sure
Speaker 1: when they're considering this kind of evidence.
Speaker 4: Which may explain why his honor cautiously and appropriately didn't
Speaker 4: accept that evidence but accepted everything else.
Speaker 1: When he read his judgment over six hours in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, Justice Ian Harrison said repeatedly that it should
Speaker 1: be taken in full.
Speaker 3: However, my ultimate findings take account of all of the
Speaker 3: evidence considered as a whole.
Speaker 1: But in wrapping up his submissions on Thursday, Crown Prosecutor
Speaker 1: Brett Hatfield said, in appealing his conviction on grounds relating
Speaker 1: to very specific findings within the seven hundred plus paragraph judgment,
Speaker 1: Chris Dawson's representatives were doing the opposite. The argument is
Speaker 1: doing precisely what his Honor said shouldn't be done. Compartmentalizing
Speaker 1: different sections of finding. The three justices have retired to
Speaker 1: consider their decision on the appeal. While they're weighing up
Speaker 1: if Dawson's conviction should be quashed. He'll remain incarcerated at
Speaker 1: the Clarence Correctional Center near Gosford. Peter Dutton will deliver
Speaker 1: his Budget reply speech in Parliament tonight. The Opposition leader
Speaker 1: will focus on key issues like migration, housing, community safety
Speaker 1: and the cost of living crisis. Come back to the
Speaker 1: front tomorrow for our analysis and follow all the action
Speaker 1: at the Australian dot com dot au