THE
TEACHER’S PET
Duration
: 33.38
TX:
10/9/18
|
INTRO: Hi, I’m Ben Fordham. It's not every day as a radio host,
you encourage your listeners to switch off your show and listen to something
else. But when my friend Hedley Thomas
dedicated the best part of a year to investigating a "cold case"
murder.. I had to make an exception. It's the mystery of what happened to missing
mother of two LYNETTE DAWSON... and why her husband CHRIS hasn't been charged
with her murder, despite two coroners recommending that happen. CHRIS DAWSON continues to maintain his innocence
but Hedley’s recent podcast investigation has uncovered compelling new
evidence .. and now, 36 years after Lynette vanished.... Hedley’s work
has led to millions of people around the world wanting answers. Australian
Story first covered the case 15 years
ago and tonight, the next
chapter in a saga that has gripped audiences everywhere. |
OPENER TOF SUPER: ‘Chequerboard,’ ABC TV, 1975, around TC: 1: 38 BOF RIGHT Super: Lyn Dawson,
TC: 2:17 |
Chequerboard sound ups: Hello. Happy birthday. Come on. How
does it feel to be a quarter of a century? Hedley Thomas, Card 1, 1.03.32 Sounds ups from Chequerboard, Lyn: Hedley, 01.05.32 Hedley, 00.55.44 Chequerboard: happy birthday to you
(singing) Hedley 01.02.15 Sound
up Lyn: MERILYN SIMMS, 00.22.30 |
|
TITLE OVER CHEQUERBOARD GFX “The Teacher’s Wife.” |
TOF SUPER: Sydney, Northern
Beaches@ 3:04 BOF SUPER: BOF SUPER: MICK FULLER, |
FIRST
PROLOGUE Hedley, 2.05.45 Podcast audio: the reason why Mick Fuller, NSW Police Commissioner, 19.15 |
TOF SUPER:
Australian Story 2003 @ 4:22 BOF SUPER:
PAT JENKINS, Lyn’s sister @4:28 |
MOTHER SEARCHING FOR LYN –
family’s loss/missing person PAT JENKINS, sister PAT JENKINS, sister |
BOF SUPER: Det Sgt DAMIAN LOONE, NSW Police @ 5:05 |
Damian Loone, TAPE 14 AT
ABOUT 09.25 she's
never gone overseas. She's never applied for a
passport. She's never applied for a Medicare card, a credit card. She doesn't
bank with anybody. She's a registered nurse. She's not registered in any
State or Territory in Australia. She
was a wife, a mother, a sister and a daughter and she has many friends out
there who loved her. And she's just basically been |
TOF SUPER:
Australian Story 2003 @ 6:40 BOF SUPER: Sue Strath, friend @ 7:24 BOF SUPER: Annette Leary, friend @
7.47 |
LYN AND CHRIS BACKSTORY PAT
JENKINS Archive
football – Chris and Paul Damian Loone Playing It to Dawson. He's going straight down the middle. Do you ever resent that close
relationship between them? No. When are you going to get the
landscaping started? PAT
JENKINS, sister I
think she had this image that, you know, wonderful children, a happy family.
And I just think that she just couldn't face the fact that perhaps this image
wasn't the real thing. Ladies chat: He's doing
something. Julie's daughter SUE STRATH, friend Lyn Dawson
and I worked together at Warriewood Children's Centre in the occasional care.
She was the nurse and I was her childcare worker She was a lovely girl. yes
she was a lovely girl Her
workmates were her main friends and the people she spoke to. So we were very
close to her. They were having marriage
difficulties i mean she used to talk to me about it because my office was the
staff room as you girls know ANNETTE LEARY, former
colleague at 6.28: |
Exteriors, Cromer High
School BOF SUPER: MICHELLE WALSH , former student,
Cromer High School @ 8:37 |
CHRIS AT CROMER HIGH WITH
JOANNE CURTIS 1.09.15 DET. SGT DAMIAN LOONE tape 12, 5'45 MICHELLE AT 01.43.05 01.42.38
There'd be times we'd go into his office , the door was open and she'd be
sitting on his lap/ and everyone talked about it. I would find it very hard
to believe that any teachers at the school wasn't aware. 01.43.37
We never thought twice about It and In fact we used to think Joanne was
really special because she was Chris's girlfriend. DET SGT DAMIAN LOONE SUE STRATH, friend ANNETTE LEARY, at 14.50 It
happened that, she walked into the
house and into the bedroom to put her things down, and Chris and the ...
Joanne, were in bed together. In her bed, and it really upset her. I think
that was one of the times when she said to us, she was worried about her
marriage. DAMIAN LOONE TAPE 12 AT
19.25: |
TOF SUPER:
Australian Story 2003 @ 10:38 TOF SUPER: GREG SIMMS, Lyn’s brother @ 10:46 |
NIGHT OF DISAPPEARANCE DET. SGT DAMIAN LOONE: ANNETTE Lynette told us // they got in the lift to go up for the session, and they were the
only two in the lift. Chris put his hands on her throat, and shook her, and
pushed her back against the wall, and said, "I'm only doing this once.
If it doesn't work, I'm getting rid of you." PAT JENKINS: GREG SIMMS: PAT JENKINS: GREG SIMMS DET. SGT DAMIAN LOONE: DET. SGT DAMIAN LOONE: |
BOF SUPER: PAT JENKINS, Lyn’s sister, @ 12.11 BOF SUPER: Sue Strath, friend @ 12.47 |
THE NEXT DAY PAT JENKINS, sister DET. SGT DAMIAN LOONE: PAT JENKINS, sister SUE STRATH, friend |
|
|
BOF SUPER: Det Sgt DAMIAN LOONE,
NSW Police @13.26 BOF SUPER: BARBARA CRUISE, friend
@ 14:38 BOF SUPER: Mick Fuller,
Commissioner, NSW Police @ 15:26 |
CHRIS’S ACCOUNT OF WHERE LYN
WENT Det Sgt Damian Loone PAT JENKINS: NEW BARBARA AT 00.10.40: GREG SIMMS: All
the information that we did receive in Lyn's disappearance was coming through
Chris. He would ring up Mum and say, "Oh, Lyn's rung me. She needs more
time to think'. Or he'd ring up and talk to Mum and say, "She's been seen at Gosford'. We had no reason whatsoever to
doubt him because he was a part of the family. Mick Fuller, NSW Police
Commissioner, 00.30 |
|
JOANNE LEAVES CHRIS, CONTACTS LYN’S FAMILY,
CONTACTS POLICE |
Gold Coast pretties BOF SUPER: HEDLEY THOMAS,
journalist, ‘The Australian,’ @ 16:07 BOF SUPER: MICHELLE WALSH, fmr
Cromer High School student, @ 16:20 BOF SUPER: MERILYN SIMMS, Lyn’s
sister-in-law @ 16:53 |
Damian, tape 13, 01.09 NEW
HEDLEY, 1.50.45, sync NEW MICHELLE WALSH
|
TOF: Australian Story, 2003 TC:
17:41 SUPER TOF: POLICE INTERVIEW, 1998 @ 17:58 BOF SUPER: Pat Jenkins, Lyn’s
sister @ 20:18 SUPER: NICHOLAS COWDERY QC, Former NSW Director of Public
Prosecutions ( 1994-2011) @21:38 |
Mick Fuller, 00:1:30 20.00 It’s
challenging for me to reflect back on 32 years ago. Was it a mistake, was it incompetence? Was it corruption? I’ll
never know the answer to that. POLICE REOPEN CASE It's detective sergeant Damien Loone. How are you? DET SGT DAMIAN LOONE: SOUND
UP OF POLICE IV WITH JOANNE FROM PODCAST: DET. SGT DAMIAN
LOONE: You felt frightened of violence upon you by Christopher? JOANNE CURTIS: Yes,
and I feared for my life at that point where I made the decision to leave,
because I was scared. You know, I was desperately unhappy. That was just,
just horrible. DET SGT
DAMIAN LOONE: JOANNE CURTIS: I said well,
you know, you can easily get rid of me like you did Lyn, type thing, perhaps
implying that Lyn was gotten rid of, but which, of course, I didn't know. And
that's when
he stood stock still and said 'don't
say things like that'. “which is something I
hadn’t seen before” DET SGT DAMIAN LOONE: Was
that unusual for you? JOANNE CURTIS: Yes. DET SGT DAMIAN LOONE: Did it frighten you? JOANNE CURTIS: Yeah. OLD DAMIAN
LOONE FROM THE CUT It's been
very difficult to run this inquiry without having a body. POLICE VIDEO:
DAMIAN OLD TAPE 14 AT 02.50: PAT JENKINS, sister POLICE
VIDEO: DAMIAN FROM OLD TAPE 14 AT
03.53:
NEW PAT JENKINS, 1.01.42
PAT JENKINS, sister POLICE
VIDEO: DET. SGT
DAMIAN LOONE: OLD DET SGT DAMIAN : NICK COWDERY: 00:06:25 |
|
|
TOF: ‘Chequerboard’ ABCTV, 1975 @
21:51 *Is
this Chris in the vision? Needs blurring. BOF SUPER: ANNETTE LEARY, friend
@ 22:48 |
OLD STORY CON'TD The girls are too nice. Think of all the
muscles I'm going to build for you for summer, so the girls chase you along
the beach SECOND CORONER’S INQUIRY, Feb
2003 NEWS
REPORTER: NEW NICHOLAS COWDERY sync [00:08:04] NEWS
REPORTER: NEW ANNETTE LEARY: 32.16 NEWS
REPORTER: Pat Jenkins, TAPE 25 AT 8.18
|
BOF SUPER: GREG SIMMS, Lyn’s brother @ 24:24 BOF SUPER: Barbara Cruise, friend@25:26 |
NEW NICHOLAS COWDERY
NEW NICHOLAS COWDERY: Lyn Dawson disappeared, and that
really is as far as I can take it in my own mind. NEW Barbara: Damien Loone, over the
years continued to investigate but really never ever led to any prosecution
or charging of Chris Dawson. |
|
|
|
HEDLEY GETS INVOLVED Hedley: 17:45 I HEDLEY AT 25.45 BARBARA CRUISE; [00:34:10] When Hedley Thomas rang me and asked me would I be involved in a
podcast, and he'd like to come and interview me, I said, "Look, I don't
really know what a podcast is but I thought, I have to stand up for Lyn. A bit of Barbara
on the podcast:
Barbara could see that Lyn was struggling in the
marriage. She’d become a mum and not the model wife that maybe
he still wanted |
BOF SUPER: HEDLEY THOMAS, journalist, The
Australian @26.50 |
HEDLEY’S NEW EVIDENCE HEDLEY: 01:13:45 01:14:15 but what I found was a witness who
had been the first babysitter in the house at Bayview. 01: 14:30 She recounted a story
that she had never told police. She
had tried to contact the police, she told me this, but they didn’t get back
to her. 01:15:30: in one incident, Chris, while
Lyn’s back was to him, whipped her across the back with a towel. An unprovoked, nasty lashing out that hurt
Lyn. And the second time was Chris
shoved Lyn quite hard against the doorway and this was direct evidence of
physical assaults. Unknown to the police until the podcast investigation. |
BOF SUPER: PAT JENKINS, Lyn’s sister @ 27.34 GRAPHIC OF THE LETTER |
HEDLEY FINDS THE STATEMENT NEW GREG: 25:20
There was a statement that Hedley found from 1982 that Chris Dawson made with
the help of a friend, a police officer NEW PAT:
23:40ish It had never
been seen by the coroner, so maybe that would have made a difference after
the first and second coronial inquiries NEW GREG AT 25.40 HEDLEY 01.24:15 |
ACA vision and sound ups |
|
BOF SUPER: MICHELLE WALSH, former student,
Cromer High School @ 28:54 |
MOMENTUM LEADS TO THE TEACHER SEX RING Podcast audio: Police and office of the director of
public prosecutions previously only had hearsay evidence about Chris’s
treatment of Lyn NEW PAT: 21:35 All the
revelations that came out and then people would come forward, each week, you
just didn’t know what you were going to hear and you just couldn’t take it
all in. Podcast audio: we have classmates and schoolmates
who have been unable to hold down a job because of what happened to them GREG: 7.00 one of the most shocking things that
came out of the podcast was the sexual assaults by the teachers on all the
schoolgirls MICHELLE: 01:46:50 it was
just a normal thing that went on. It
happened all the time. We all knew teachers were going out with students. |
BOF SUPER: MICK FULLER, NSW Police
Commissioner @ 29.10 TOF Super: File Footage TC:29:25 TOF (over ACA footage), August 2018 @ 30.19 SUPER: NICHOLAS COWDERY QC, Former NSW Director of Public Prosecutions ( 1994-2011) @ 30:44 |
POLICE RESPONSE
MICK FULLER: in terms of Lynette Dawson’s case MICK FULLER: 20:40 what’s important for me at the end of the day is we
get justice for Lynette. That is
charging someone with her death. MICK FULLER 00:05:00 NEW PAT
1.13.19 it
all depends on the DPP. We're just hopeful that they will, with new eyes,
look at the evidence, look at the new evidence you just need them to have to,
Chris to have to stand up and, and ... Just answer to the accusations but you
know he's never had to be questioned about that really, in a court of law. Can we ask you any questions
about what happened to your wife Lyn? COWDERY: [00:46:34… very little consideration has been
given to Chris Dawson and his position. Obviously if you know
something surely you’ll want to say something for the sake of your
daughters. Paul you can’t tell us
anything about this. We can’t make contact. He is either somebody responsible for his wife's death,
or somebody who was deserted by his wife. Guys
it’s ok, we’re just trying to ask you some questions We don't know which it is. I think we should have
[00:47:04] that in the back of our minds. If there are grounds for revisiting the case, to have it
re-examined and a fresh assessment made as to whether or not there should be
a prosecutor, then I’m all for that course to happen. NEW MICK FULLER: We’re hoping the new evidence is enough
to push this matter into criminal prosecution. MICK FULLER: 6:30 and If it
doesn’t we will continue to investigate the matter. We won’t give up. |
|
|
|
|
Family going through photos
.. just to think he was best man at the wedding. SEQUENCE – Greg &
Merilyn looking thru clippings 1.31.59 NEW PAT 1.21.07 NEW PAT 1.04.22 GREG |
ENDING: NAT SOT… oh
geez. You look at these and it’s just
hard to believe he’s our best man. But we did trust him. Shows you how much
he had us fooled. NEW PAT: I don’t think we
ever knew the real Chris. He just had
this charisma, this charm and people just believed what you saw was a clean
living, good person. We just didn’t
know the real person at all. PAT: Without this podcast we would have gone on for
the next 30 years and nothing would have happened. There’s hope. This podcast has given us hope. NEW GREG: We haven’t been
fighting by ourselves. Every week we’re getting millions and millions of
other people – not only Australians but people in America, Canada, New
Zealand, England and it’s that momentum, we hope, that’ll give us the ride on
the wave to the beach. Pat: Lyn never wanted the
limelight. I don't think she'd believe it. I think she'd be
warmed by it though because everyone's sort of on her side. I think
she'd hope that maybe there'd be some justice for her. |
|
End caption: Australian Story approached Chris Dawson and
Joanne Curtis for interview. Chris Dawson maintains his innocence. |