A listener production.
Hello, Tom Tilley with you for today's briefing. And in this episode, we get the latest from the trial of Chris Dawson. Now, this is the case that was at the centre of the Teacher's Pet podcast.
There's evidence that Lynn Dawson made a phone call to her husband, who was working at the Northbridge Baths as a lifeguard on that particular Saturday. And she basically said, according to evidence, Look, you had your time out. I think I need a little bit of time out for myself. So that sort of mutually agreed on that. And that was the last anyone had ever seen Lynn Dawson.
Chris Dawson was a rugby player and a teacher. Lynette Dawson was a nurse and a devoted mother. He's pleaded not guilty to her murder. And this story has gripped the nation and it's now playing out in court. So midway through the trial, we find out what fresh evidence has been uncovered in the decades long mystery. First, today's headlines with Tash Belling. It is Monday, June 20th.
Good morning, Tom. Thank you. A huge decision on transgender athletes in swimming fina world swimming governing body has voted to restrict transgender athletes in elite women's competitions.
Male to female transgender athletes whose legal gender or gender identity is female may only compete in FINA competition in the female category if they can establish that they have not experienced any part of male puberty fantasy.
Brent Nowicki So the decision was made during Fina's extraordinary general Congress, which is happening on the sidelines of the World Championships in Budapest, and around 71% of their members of the 152 national federations voted for this policy.
It means male to female. Transgender competitors have to have completed their transition by the age of 12in order to be able to compete in women's competitions.
Yeah, the other important part of this decision is to create a new category for transgender athletes to compete in. It will be called an open category. So this is a big one, Tash. It means that Lia Thomas, that well-known American transgender swimmer, won't be able to compete at the Olympics or the world championships.
And Tom, obviously I'm thinking straight away, will this set a precedent then for other sporting competitions and other athletes?
Yeah, I think it probably will.
And the vote, of course, followed a report from a transgender taskforce comprising leading medical, legal and sports figures.
And a big payout for hundreds of thousands of Toyota drivers.
In Australia's largest ever class action. The Federal Court ruled in April that Toyota, Hilux, Prado and Fortuner diesel vehicles sold from the 1st of October 2015 to the 23rd of April 2020 had a defect.
Yes, the defect caused excessive smell and white smoke and also increased fuel consumption. And the court found the defects also led to a 17.5% price drop in the value of the cars when they were resold, which means the owners of 260,000 of these defective vehicles will be compensated.
The best guide is around 17.5 per percent of the average retail price of that vehicle. New.
That's extraordinary. And I can't believe also about the fuel consumption issues. So does that mean not only the value of your car has dropped, but also the fact that you were using a lot more fuel and that was then costing you a lot more at the petrol pump.
Yeah. Interesting point. That was Matt Mackenzie from Gilbert and Tobin Lawyers we heard before. But yeah, Toyota's are such a popular car, so a ruling like this just affects so many people, a quarter of a million. It's just huge.
And Toyota has appealed that judgment.
And the former Coalition government's new job seeker policy will go ahead in 11 days. It has a points based system which will require job seekers to earn 100 points through searching for jobs, studying training and work for the dole.
It's actually too late to not have a point system at all. It's about getting inside it and making it logical and making sure that when all these contracts take effect in a couple of weeks time, we've actually got a system that helps long term unemployed people.
That's Employment Minister Tony Burke on Sky there. The new system will replace the job active program that required people to lodge 20 applications a month. Mr. Burke has said he supports the flexibility of the new system but is concerned about parts of it that are meant to be automated, bringing back memories of course, of the Robodebt disaster.
And pressure is growing on the Australian Government to do more now that Julian Assange is facing extradition to the US. On Saturday, the British Home Secretary approved the extradition order and if carried out, it will mean Assange will face a US court.
He is, of course charged with breaching the US Espionage Act, facing up to 175 years in jail. If convicted. There's still a long way to.
Go in terms of our appeals here in the United Kingdom, potentially all the way to the Supreme Court.
So that's Assange's lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, speaking on ten there. So this case has been going since 2010 when WikiLeaks first published those documents about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, as well as diplomatic cables. And now that he's getting one step closer to extradition, people are basically calling on the Labour government to put their money where their mouth is.
They've been seemingly tight, more supportive of Assange plight than previous governments, saying that this has dragged on long enough. Anthony Albanese also says that loud hailer diplomacy is not the way to go here. So you would expect that behind the scenes they will be talking to Joe Biden and.
I saw Jennifer Robinson, who is of course, Assange's lawyer we heard from earlier there, she said over the weekend, which I thought was an excellent point. You know, this is a huge precedent for journalism and journalists in general. You know, does that mean, therefore, if you publish controversial documents that may. Expose government mistakes or alleged cover ups. Does that then mean journalists can go to jail?
Speaking of which, there were a few at the Logies last night. What journalists.
Or criminals?
Good question, Tasha. I'll leave that call to you. The Logies were back after three years of not happening thanks to the pandemic. So apart from all the glitz and glamour, some of the results, Hamish Blake took out the Gold Logie for most popular personality on Australian TV, as well as the inaugural Bert Newton Award for most popular presenter. We really couldn't.
Do it without the people that are watching at home. And if you're watching this, you're an insomniac, but if you're also somebody that supports Australian TV and we would not be here without you. So thank you.
Hamish Blake there. Good on him for getting gold. Guy Pearce won most popular actor for Jack Irish and Katie Flanagan won most popular actress for How Good was Kitty and Fisk? Did you see it, Tom?
No, I didn't. Sorry.
It was really, really fantastic. Tony Armstrong won the Graham Kennedy Award for most popular new talent for ABC News Breakfast. You might remember him celebrating on air, of course, following the Socceroos win over Peru. He was a bit excited, wasn't he?
Yeah, he was. He's had an amazing time on television. I mean, he's sort of really only come to prominence in the last year, but people love him. He's such a fun guy. And I guess, you know, in that ABC News Breakfast format, which is, you know, a pretty relatively serious kind of show for breakfast TV, he really likes it up. He's indigenous as well. So he brings a really interesting background to the show. I've met him.
He's an awesome dude, so good on him. And yeah, it was good to see everyone frothing up and doing what they used to do. And of course the Gold Coast was absolutely the right place for such a wonderfully trashy event.
Do you know what I do think, though, on a serious note, you know, people think it's all this glitz and glamour. What I love about it is the fact that it recognizes all the people behind the scenes that work incredibly hard to put together. Often these great shows and also great recognition of some fantastic Australian dramas. The newsreader was amazing. Did you see that on the ABC? Yeah,
I did, yeah. Yeah. So great recognition for, you know, an industry that does employ tens of thousands of people.
All right. Thanks so much, Tosh. We're jumping out of here. Anika and Katrina bring you the latest on the Chris Dawson trial.
Annika. I'm actually not that much of a true crime junkie, but when the Teacher's Pet podcast came out, it was honestly one of those ones that got me completely hooked. I reckon it was one of the first true crime podcasts that got on my radar. I know I'm not alone. Millions of people around the world have become obsessed with this story. It's from the outside looking in a seemingly perfect marriage. It involves Lynette and Chris Dawson. He was a star footballer and she was a devoted mum. They
shared a beautiful home in Sydney's northern beaches. But all of that unravelled when Lynette went missing in January 1982.
Yes, I listened pretty religiously to I can.
Remember getting to work, walking to work, listening and stopping and not starting work until I could finish an episode. It was, you know, a really gripping series. And obviously it created huge interest. And her disappearance has remained a cold case. It's been 40 years now. Chris Dawson, Lynette's husband, went on to marry their teenage babysitter and one of his former students. And for many years, there's been no
movement on this case. And what happened to Lynette? There were always whispers and speculations about what might have happened. There were sightings, alleged sightings and questions raised about the relationship between Chris and Lynette, just how happy they were. But nothing was done until a group of journalists dug into the story, made it a podcast. And now with fresh evidence, Chris Dawson is on trial for murder.
Yeah, So it's been quite a few weeks of this trial, and we wanted to know what exactly has been brought to light since this trial has begun and where is the court case at now? Joining us on today's briefing is Matthew Condon, who is one of the journalists behind the teacher's pet podcast. He's been in court every day.
It's been 40 years since Lynette Dawson went missing. And for those that haven't followed the case or the wildly popular podcast, can you explain how this latest court case, so long after she went missing, actually came about.
As you said, 40 years literally this year since Lynn Dawson disappeared? There were sporadic investigations into this. I mean, for many years she was treated as a missing person. An investigation heated up again in late 1989, 1990. And then, of course, along came the incredibly popular podcast The Teacher's Pet, by Hedley Thomas, the award winning journalist. So that, of course, revived interest again in the case. I think it had over 60 million downloads that podcast around the world. Witnesses
came forward certainly to Hedley for his podcast. Again, police reignited their investigation and subsequently Christopher Dawson, Lynn Dawson's husband, was finally charged with her murder. So after all these years, we arrive at Court nine D in the Supreme Court in Sydney.
And why do you think it's taken so long to get answers for the family? Was it a case of police negligence at the time? Was it just a different time when I guess these cases were treated differently? What do you put it down to the fact that she wasn't found?
So Lynn disappears in at the end of January 1982, and then Chris Dawson alleges that his wife contacted him on a few occasions by telephone after the date of the end of the first week of January, people came forward, friends of the Dawsons and indeed a relative. This has been examined in the case with sightings of Lynn Dawson.
So there were there were sightings, you know, a few years after she went missing, working as a nurse, for example, at a hospital in Cocoa in Sydney, a relative gave evidence that he indeed sighted Lynn in Gatesville on busy Victoria Road, believing that she was working as a nurse at a nearby hospital. So you have all of this doubt about is she alive? Is she not in the narrative as it's moved forward?
We've got this court case happening right now. What is it that the court is being asked to decide and what could that mean for Chris Dawson?
Well, he's facing the most serious charge of all, and that is that he murdered his wife, Lynn Dawson. And that alleged crime occurred around the end of the first week of January. In 1982. His defense team successfully argued for what's called a judge alone trial. That means no jury. I mean, the basis was that with the popularity of the teacher's pet and the Teacher's Pet podcast has come up.
Day in, day out in this trial from the defense, in terms of the allegation that the podcast had of serious influence, given its popularity and certain thematics that it took, that it may have indeed influenced witnesses in the trial. The judge alone decision was because, they argued, Christensen could not possibly get a fair trial before a jury. Given the popularity of this story, I mean, the publicity. You know,
fair enough. How could he get a fair trial with a jury of his peers so its judge alone before Justice Ian Harrison.
And how much of the evidence being presented is historic such are those police interviews or intercepts from the time versus witnesses coming forward in the years since Lynn disappeared? Is it a 5050 split? Is there a huge amount of new evidence? What's the court sort of hearing?
The court is hearing piece by piece, brick by brick. The building of the narrative behind the disappearance of Lynn Dawson. Such is the nature of serious trials. For example, though, since the trial began six weeks ago, people are still coming forward and contacting Crime Stoppers and are offering new information. Whether that will be admitted and become part of the trial is unknown at the moment, but it's been very
carefully systematic. So the case began, for example, with evidence from the neighbors of the Dawsons up at Bayview Heights on Sydney's northern beaches. It then went to the workmates of Lynn who worked at the wayward Childcare centre up there as a nurse. There was evidence, of course, over several days from JC, who was the young babysitter at the epicentre of this story and this trial. And then it moved to, of course, family members were giving evidence.
It was heartbreaking in many instances. And now we've moved on to the police and their investigation. So it's been very carefully plotted. In any case, a narrative takes time to sort of come into focus. It is a building of a picture.
Has the court heard from Chris's second wife? And what do we know about their relationship, both before Lynne went missing and of course, after.
Chris's second wife was the babysitter? We can't name her because she was underage at the time of this situation. So she's known as Jake to cut a very long story short. JC was a student at Cromer High where Chris Dawson was a teacher in late 1981. JC She briefly moved into the house at two Gill Wingard drive Bayview into Chris and Lynn's house. The explanation was that she had a troubled home life. She was trying to
complete her HSC, which obviously required stability. And JC, who had been their babysitter for some time, briefly moved into the home. Now, if you spool forward to around Christmas 1981, the evidence in court has been that Chris Dawson and JC hopped in a car through some clothes in the car and headed north, ostensibly to Queensland, to start a new life together as they travelled north. JC felt physically unwell and was missing her family and said, Can we
turn around essentially and back? They went to Sydney. Christmas Day has been an epicentre of this case. It's an important day, 1981, in that the Dawsons, a very close family, have always celebrated Christmas and held it to be very important, like a lot of families do. But on this Christmas Day, where there was a gathering at Chris Dawson's parents house
in Sydney, Chris Dawson wasn't present. He was at his twin brother, Paul's house, which is only a couple of doors down from his home in Bayview, and Lynn Dawson went to the function on her own. So there was evidence about discussions about Chris, and Lynn's understanding was that he needed some time out to himself at that point. Go forward now to January and Lynn and Chris Dawson come back together. They agree to see a marriage counsellor.
Everything looks great. Lynn's happy. Chris Dawson says he was happy that there was great hopes that they could make this work. And then come that first weekend in January, there's evidence that Lynn Dawson made a phone call to her husband, who was working at the Northbridge Baths as a lifeguard on that particular Saturday. And she basically said, according to evidence, look, you had your time out. I think I need a little bit of time out for myself.
So that sort of mutually agreed on that. And that was the last any. One had ever seen Lin Dawson.
What has it been like covering this case and why do you think that certain cases like this capture the national attention?
Why they catch the attention. And it occurred to me sitting in the court, you know, watching witnesses come and go, listening to arguments from the crown and the defense. It occurred to me that, in essence, this is a very simple story. It's about a husband and a wife. It's about the fraying of a marriage. And it's about that
scenario resulting in where we are today. I think it touches on a lot of common things that we all share in terms of a relationship, in terms of having young children in in terms of trying to make something work. This is a story from the 70 seconds and the early 80 seconds, but it's all about raising kids and how difficult that is and keeping a roof over your head and being able to afford the mortgage. And it's just that classic suburban drama that touches us all really.
You know, it has its incredibly poignant moments, too, when you look at the family and they're hearing evidence day in, day out about their missing sibling.
Now, there's been no evidence that Lin is still around. There hasn't been a body that's been found. There's been a few sightings. All of this leaves a really uncertain situation for the family. So importantly, do you think we're ever going to get any answers and from this trial about what happened to Lin?
Well, the assumption of finding a body is the assumption that she is indeed dead. So the defense contends that she disappeared and indeed that it was of her own volition that she made a break from the family at that point. And the case is been trying to examine all sides of this story and whether, indeed that's a valid conclusion to reach and probing Lin's character and her state of mind leading up to her disappearance, per se. So,
you know, this is a trial. We have to obviously balance everything, taking every view from the crown, from the defense. And the ultimate answer to this question rests with his honor, Justice Ian Harrison.
And that was journalist Matthew Condon, who's been covering this case every day. Annika, interesting that Chris Dawson, I mean, so many years have passed. He's he's in his 70 seconds now for so many families who their loved ones have gone missing and they've never been able to get answers.
I guess it's people power that have brought cases like this particular one and other cases to light and led to either fresh evidence with people coming forward or inquests or even court cases, as is the case with this one.
Yeah, it's a bit of a double edged sword, isn't it? You get the prominence in the media and often, you know, in this case you actually get a trial, but of course it can be used against you. You know, Chris Dawson has tried to use the podcast as a reason why he says he's not getting a fair trial. So it's a fine line, but obviously a great way of trying to deliver outcomes and answers for families. Listener.