“What I say is the truth”: Chris Dawson’s sole witness takes the stand
A man who claims to have seen Lynette Dawson after she disappeared has been called as the sole witness by Chris Dawson and his lawyers.
Mr Dawson is accused of killing his wife so he could be with the family babysitter, in a trial that has seen the prosecution call on multiple witnesses over the past few months.
Having waived his right to give evidence, Mr Dawson’s defence seems to rely on the testimony of Paul Cooper, who claims he saw the missing woman after she ran away from her husband.
Mr Cooper told the court about the encounter, which took place 40 years ago at a Warner’s Bay hotel in Lake Macquarie, where he said he saw a woman who looked like Lynette.
“She had left her husband … he had been playing up on her … I asked her was she going to go back and she said no,” Mr Cooper told the Supreme Court on Monday.
“I said, ‘What about your children? It’s not fair to them’.
“She didn’t have any ID … she had money because she had sold something.
“She was also waiting to get a passport … she was going to go to Bali and then head off to another overseas country.”
As Mr Cooper gave his evidence, Lynette’s family shook their heads in disbelief, having maintained that she would never have abandoned her daughters.
Mr Cooper said the conversation continued and that he began to suspect the woman was trying to frame her husband.
“I said to her they were going to think he knocked ya … I thought she was setting her husband up.”
Mr Cooper came forward with his story in 2018, when he saw photos of Lynnette on an episode of A Current Affair.
However, he didn’t go to the police with his story, telling the court that he doubted they would believe him, opting instead to contact Mr Dawson’s solicitor, Greg Walsh.
Under cross-examination, Mr Cooper told the court he was “200 percent” sure the woman he met was Lynette.
“You don’t forget something like that. No, it was her. 100 percent. I’ll give you 200 percent,” Mr Cooper said.
He also said he would not have testified if he believed Mr Dawson had killed his wife, having witnessed his own father kill his mother as a young child.
“If I thought this man was guilty, I wouldn’t be sitting here now defending him for the same sort of thing, when I sat through that as a nine-year-old boy, too scared to move off the lounge because I thought I’d get shot in the head,” Mr Cooper said.
“I’m not here to muck around, I’m here because I believe in what I say. What I say is the truth.”
In court, Mr Cooper’s credibility as a witness was called into question. The court heard that Mr Cooper had been in prison for offences including drugs, theft, break and enter, and armed robbery.
He also admitted to using cannabis and being arrested for possession of cannabis and heroin in the 1980s and 1990s.
However, he said the use of those drugs hadn’t affected his memory.
Crown prosecutor Craig Everson told Justice Harrison it was “improbable” that Lynette had walked out on her daughters and family.
He argued that Mr Cooper’s evidence was unreliable, given that he couldn’t recall significant details about the woman he met, including her name, the names of her children, or anything about her husband.
“The fact he had a seemingly not insignificant drug problem during that period and it was such a long time ago, to be looking at a single photo in the witness box or on the screen of a television program, there is a significant unreliability,” Mr Everson said.
The trial is now entering its closing stages, with the crown beginning its closing submissions on Monday.
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