COLD CASE IN SPOTLIGHT
CHRIS Dawson has always maintained his innocence.
In the intense public interest that has surrounded the cold case disappearance of his wife Lyn 36 years ago and the media frenzy over his arrest on the Gold Coast yesterday, the former Sydney rugby league player and sports teacher’s right to the presumption of innocence must be borne in mind.
The NSW courts will test the allegations and evidence of this case and determine Mr Dawson’s innocence or guilt. The outcome cannot be determined by the court of public opinion.
Without canvassing innocence or guilt though, aspects can be discussed – including the course this matter has taken this past year, which has been an intriguing example of public fascination with criminal investigations and, as one feature article looked at this week, the evolution of how authors and journalists have sought to sift through details of unsolved cases and explain them in a way that captures the imagination of a willing public.
Such fascination is not new. Perhaps award-winning American author Truman Capote’s breakthrough 1966 non-fiction work In Cold Blood was the piece that really got the ball rolling, setting in train an aspect of journalism that has developed into the podcasts by various media outlets in recent times, including The Australian’s series The Teacher’s Pet written and produced by former Gold Coast Bulletin journalist Hedley Thomas.
It is public knowledge that ramifications of the Lyn Dawson disappearance have been felt far and wide, including on the Gold Coast where Mr Dawson lived and taught in the 1980s and where he was arrested yesterday.
In a week in which the justice system has been under the spotlight in Victoria where – in a separate matter – the state has been rocked by revelations a defence lawyer acted as a police informer during a long and bloody gangland war in Melbourne, with the possibility crime figures might end up being freed as a result, the development in the Dawson case yesterday has shown a positive side to police work.
Again, without commenting on the innocence or guilt of Mr Dawson, one thing NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said in recent months has struck a chord with a public that on occasions has questioned the role and worth of the police and justice systems.
Following two inquests into Mrs Dawson’s disappearance – in 2001 and 2003 – in which the coroners found she had been murdered by her husband, the then NSW Director of Public Prosecutions, Nicholas Cowdery QC, refused to pursue charges, citing insufficient evidence.
Factors included lack of a body and also alleged sightings of Mrs Dawson after the day she disappeared in 1982.
Mr Fuller has publicly apologised to her family for failings in the investigation in the 1980s.
And he has said that despite the DPP’s rulings, the matter was never over from a NSW police perspective.
Such determination to keep on a case until there is a resolution should give heart to families in a long list of cases that remain open.