Tuesday 24 May 2022 08:13 AM Chris Dawson murder trial hears allegation Lyn was 'wrestled' to ground and had ... trends now
Chris Dawson's murder trial has heard details of a story told by a neighbour who claims she saw the former footy star attacking his wife Lyn next to their swimming pool before he 'wrestled her to the ground and had her face in the mud'.
Dawson, 73, is standing trial in the NSW Supreme Court accused of murdering his wife, who disappeared aged 33.
The Crown claims that then-high school teacher Chris Dawson killed Lynette and disposed of her body because of his affair with JC, who was one of his PE students.
In testimony on Tuesday, a friend of Lynette Dawson's told how the allegedly murdered woman described going home to Bayview, on Sydney's northern beaches, to find the teenage schoolgirl - referred to in the trial as JC - 'naked' in the family swimming pool.
'She'd got home from work and the babysitter was in the pool naked and Chris was somewhere in the house,' Sue Strath told the court.
'I said 'I don't think the babysitter should be living there with you'. She said 'she's got nowhere else to go'.
'I said 'that's not your problem'. She said 'nothing will happen, my Chris wouldn't do anything wrong'. He was always 'my Chris', she had him on a pedestal.'
The story of the attack by the swimming pool was recounted third hand by a former colleague of Lynette's on the podcast The Teacher's Pet, part of which was played at the trial on Tuesday.
The woman who told the story, Lynette Dawson's former childcare centre co-worker Annette Leary, was accused by Dawson's barrister, Pauline David, of being a gossip.
The court heard Chris Dawson's wife told her friend Sue Strath how she came home to find the babysitter JC (above) moved into the home and swimming 'naked' in the pool, with her husband inside the house
The murder trial has heard a story of a neighbour seeing Chris Dawson attacking his wife Lyn next to their swimming pool and then he 'wrestled her to the ground and had her face in the mud'
Earlier in the trial, Ms Leary had told the court she saw 'bruises on the throat' of Ms Dawson, who told her Chris had 'grabbed' her in the lift when they went to marriage counselling.
'You told (podcaster) Hedley Thomas about an incident where Chris attacked Lyn next to the swimming pool, wrestled her to the ground and had her face in the mud?' Ms David asked Ms Leary on Tuesday.
The court heard Ms Leary said the Dawsons' neighbour had relayed the story to a friend of Lyn Dawson's, Anna Grantham, who had told her.
Asked repeatedly by Ms David whether she had her stories wrong or was confused about them, Ms Leary laughed and told the barrister, 'I think you are suggesting I'm lying and I am not. The way you continue to go on about it, that's how it feels'.
Sue Strath told the court both she and her husband, who had played football with Chris Dawson, were friends with the couple before Lyn disappeared.
She described Lyn as 'a great mum'.
Chris Dawson is on trial for the alleged murder of his first wife Lynette (above, the couple together), who hasn't been seen since January 1982
Ms Strath said before she disappeared Lyn had been 'very excited' about her older daughter, who was four years old, going off to school.
'That was a very exciting moment in Lynette's life, (she) had already got the uniform, the shoes. She was really very proud of her daughters, had them dressed immaculately,' she said.
'She was a very affectionate, fun-loving mum.'
Love letters were also tendered to the trial this week, sent by Chris Dawson to his schoolgirl wife JC after she fled their crumbling marriage in early 1990.
They included lines like 'till death do us part', 'honey come back' and 'oh you beautiful doll'.
The letters begged his second wife, known legally at Dawson's murder trial as 'JC', to return and were written
