Chris Dawson (right) outside the NSW Supreme Court this week.

Chris Dawson (right) outside the NSW Supreme Court this week.Credit:Kate Geraghty

Excerpts from the recording were aired on Wednesday afternoon in the NSW Supreme Court,where Dawson,73,is on trial after pleading not guilty to Lynette’s murder.

Dawson had travelled to Queensland shortly before Christmas 1981 with his former student and the couple’s babysitter,JC,with a view to them starting a new life together.

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“I came up to Queensland with a girl I was having an affair with at the time,” Dawson told police.

He said he had come back “to try and sort things out” and had attended marriage counselling with his wife.

Dawson also spoke about a man from a “religious sect” who he said had been asking Lynette to come along to meetings and giving her literature.

Dawson said on January 9,1982,he had dropped Lynette at a bus stop to do some shopping and was “expecting” her to meet him and their daughters at Northbridge Baths,where he worked part-time.

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Dawson said he received a phone call at work and “it was Lyn”.

“She said she needed time away,like I’d had prior to that date,and she’d ring me in a few days time,” Dawson told police.

Lynette and Chris Dawson.

Lynette and Chris Dawson.

He said he received “several phone calls” in the following weeks,during which Lynette said she “needed extra time” and “she didn’t know” when she would return.

“I haven’t had any further contact with her,” he said.

Dawson reported the 33-year-old missing on February 18.

The former rugby league player with the Newtown Jets also spoke of friends at Belrose rugby league club and others with police links who he asked “to help locate Lyn’s whereabouts”. He said someone mentioned seeing her on the Central Coast.

Earlier on Wednesday,a woman who identified herself as a close friend of JC’s in year 11 and 12 said Dawson had been a “very vain” and “very flirtatious” teacher.

“He was probably what was considered classically good-looking. Tall,broad shouldered,tan skin. But I didn’t find him good-looking,” she said.

Asked by defence lawyer Greg Walsh whether he was not her “type”,she replied,“He was a teacher.”

She said JC was regularly seen standing in the doorway of Dawson’s physical education office. The woman said she thought the situation between JC and Dawson was “weird” and “upsetting”.

“We might’ve talked behind her back about it,but we didn’t confront her,I didn’t confront her.”

The court also heard from one of JC’s sisters,who said in 1981 she was “taunted” by other students with lyrics fromDon’t Stand So Close to Me by The Police.

“Young teacher,the subject of schoolgirl fantasy,” was sung to her in the schoolyard,she said.

“I knew they were referring to my sister[JC] and Mr Dawson,” she said,adding that it made her “cringe”.

JC and Dawson married in 1984 and separated in 1990. After the split,JC’s high school friend said she ran into JC and asked her why she had left Dawson and what had happened to Lynette.

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“The substance of what she said was that she believed Lyn had been murdered,” the woman said.

She said JC “couldn’t explain” but said it was “weird” that Lynette’s rings and clothes were left at the home in Bayview. The woman said JC told her Dawson had been controlling,and she was unhappy.

“He was aggressive,and she was miserable,and she had to get out,” she recalled JC as having said.

The woman said JC told her Dawson had once taken her somewhere,told her to stay in the car and “took something out of the glove box”. “She said she felt it was money to pay someone to kill Lyn.”

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