Former teacher Chris Dawson has officially been committed to stand trial in the NSW Supreme Court over the alleged murder of his wife Lynette Dawson back in 1982.
Dawson, who is now 71 years old, faced a four-day committal hearing in Sydney this week, which heard evidence from multiple witnesses who claim to have seen Lyn Dawson up to two years after her 1982 disappearance.
To this day, Chris maintains his innocence, claiming he had nothing to do with Ms Dawson’s disappearance and that she simply ran away from her family.
Dawson’s brother-in-law Ross Hutcheon was the fourth witness to tell the court this week that he saw Ms Dawson after her alleged disappearance back in January 1982. Appearing via video link from Western Australia, Hutcheon asserts that he saw her 3-6 months after her disappearance waiting at a bus stop near a hospital in Gladesville, according to the ABC.
“I immediately recognised her as Lyn Dawson. I also noted at the time that to my left was Gladesville Hospital. Lyn was a nurse. I put the two together,” he told the court.
At the time, he was aware that Lyn was no longer living in the family home, but asserts he “didn’t realise the implications of the whole issue.”
“I made a very, very, very big mistake by not stopping the car in the first place and talking to Lyn.”
The statement comes just one day after Dawson’s former neighbours Jill and Peter Breese also claimed to have seen Lyn working at a hospital in 1984, two years after her alleged disappearance.
The case attracted worldwide attention as a result of The Australian’s investigative podcast The Teacher’s Pet, which is temporarily unavailable in Australia pending the trial for the murder of Lyn Dawson.
Chris Dawson will appear in court in April before a six-week trial takes place later this year.
