Thursday 16 June 2022 03:43 AM Star witness who knew gangster Neddy Smith describes amazement at Chris Dawson ... trends now
A former Newtown Jets player who had met Sydney gangster Neddy Smith has described his amazement when Chris Dawson allegedly approached him on a plane to ask if he knew someone to help 'get rid of his wife'.
Robert Silkman, was on a flight home from a Jets holiday with teammates when he says Dawson bent over and made the request, to which Silkman replied, 'what, for good?'
'And he said "yeah" and I said "I'll talk to you when I get back to Sydney",' Mr Silkman told Chris Dawson's murder trial on Thursday.
He said he then turned to the Jets player sitting next to him on the plane, Ray Lee.
'I said "you wouldn't believe what Chris Dawson just said to me?" and I was laughing, "he said he wanted to know if I can use someone to get rid of his wife.
'And I said "he's f***ing mad".'
Mr Silkman - who admitted under cross-examination he has a criminal record - said he had never again discussed with Chris Dawson what had occurred on the flight.
The Chris Dawson murder trial heard a Newtown Jets team mate of Chris Dawson who had met gangster Neddy Smith (Smith is above, left, with wife Debra and a man Smith later murdered, Harvey Jones) had been asked on a plane flight by the accused for help in getting his wife Lynette Dawson killed
Robert Silkman, who has met Neddy Smith at a pub with Newtown Jets' teammate Paul Hayward (pictured above) - Smith's brother-in-law - said when Dawson asked him for help 'to get rid of' Lynette Dawsonm he replied 'you mean for good?'
Robert Silkman said when Chris Dawson (above) approached him on the return flight from a Newtown Jets team holiday with the request, he'd told another Jets player that Dawson was 'f***ing mad'
In the course of Mr Silkman's cross-examination by Chris Dawson's barrister Pauline David, Justice Ian Harrison took the step to grant the witness immunity against self-incrimination when being quizzed about past crimes.
Justice Harrison said Mr Silkman's credibility as a witness, given his dishonest past, would have to be judged.
Now in his 70s, Mr Silkman told the court he had met Neddy Smith at a pub in the 1970s when he went for a drink with his friend, Newtown Jets star halfback, Paul Hayward.
The NSW Supreme Court on Thursday heard that Smith - a heroin dealer and later a convicted murderer who was a notorious Sydney criminal and died in jail last year - had been at a hotel when the Newtown team mates turned up, but that Mr Silkman was not a friend of his.
'I didn't have no association with Neddy Smith, only a hello in a hotel,' Mr Silkman told the court, adding that 'nothing was secret' about that fact.
Mr Silkman said the approach by Chris Dawson on a plane flight from the Gold Coast to Sydney had occurred after a Jets end-of-season holiday in late 1975.
The teammates had stayed at the Tiki Inn in Surfers Paradise, and on October 1, 1975, watched the Muhammad Ali boxing fight against Joe Frazier in the Philippines, known as the 'Thriller in Manila'.
On the flight Mr Silkman was sitting in an aisle seat and he said that Dawson had 'come along and kneeled down to my level where I was sitting and asked me ... did I know anyone' to get rid of Lynette Dawson.
Mr Silkman said he didn't know Mrs Dawson. He was testifying via AVL from Bankstown police station at the murder trial of Christopher Michael Dawson, who has pleaded not guilty to killing his wife.
The 1975 Newtown Jets team including Chris Dawson (not pictured), his twin Paul Dawson (back row, fourth from left) had colourful identities such as armed robber Gary Sullivan (front row second from left), drug trafficker Paul Hayward (back row, second from left), disgraced cop David Oliveri (back row, third from left) and alleged mob driver Doug Kemister (bottom right).
The trial has heard that Newtown Jets former team mate of Chris Dason's, Robert Silkman, will claim the accused asked him in 1975 - six years before Lyn Dawson(above) disappeared if he could get someone to kill her
Lynette Dawson disappeared in January 1982, just over six years after the Jets' Gold Coast team holiday, and Chris Dawson is accused of murdering her and disposing of her body.
The crown argues that he did so to have an unfettered relationship with
