Latest / The Front / Dawson’s appeal goes down to the wire

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Dawson’s appeal goes down to the wire · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Christa
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  Speaker 1: naming it. It's Thursday May sixteenth. Four years. That's how
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  Speaker 1: long taxpayers have got to enjoy the benefits of the
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  Speaker 1: government's Stage three tax cuts. After that, higher tax rates
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  Speaker 1: will kick back in. That's despite Treasurer Jim Chalmers big
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  Speaker 1: cost of living pitch on Tuesday night.
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  Speaker 2: We are easing pressure on Australians while investing in our people,
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  Speaker 2: our economy and our future.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: The Treasurer said on Wednesday. The government won't means test
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  Speaker 1: the three hundred dollars energy rebates announced in the budget
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  Speaker 1: because it'll take too long and cost too much. That's
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  Speaker 1: despite his concession that well for your Australians with more
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  Speaker 1: than one home could claim multiple subsidies. You can read
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  Speaker 1: our experts ongoing analysis of Labour's third federal budget right
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  Speaker 1: now at the Australian dot com dot au. The fight
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  Speaker 1: over a contentious piece of evidence in the appeal of
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  Speaker 1: Christopher Michael Dawson has gone down to the wire. The
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  Speaker 1: former rugby league star has asked the New South Wales
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  Speaker 1: Court of Appeal to overturn his conviction for the nineteen
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  Speaker 1: eighty two murder of his first wife. In today's episode,
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  Speaker 1: the Last Moments of Chris Dawson's latest attempt at freedom.
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  Speaker 1: In twenty thirteen, Marilyn Dawson posted a picture to Facebook.
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  Speaker 1: A friend, Ray Butler, had his arms slung around his
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  Speaker 1: old footy mats, her husband Paul on the left, and
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  Speaker 1: his twin brother Chris on the right. They're beaming at
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  Speaker 1: the camera. They'd enjoyed similar reunions in the decades since
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  Speaker 1: they shared the paddock at Gosford Rugby League Club, where
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  Speaker 1: Butler was a manager. The twins played for the club
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  Speaker 1: after they left the Newtown Jets. The Dawsons went on
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  Speaker 1: to be teachers when their footy careers wound down, but
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  Speaker 1: they stayed in touch, catching up at club events and
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  Speaker 1: family gatherings. Their spouses Marilyn, who was married to Paul,
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  Speaker 1: Chris's wife Lynn, and Ray's wife Sue got to know
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  Speaker 1: each other too. When that picture was posted to Facebook
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  Speaker 1: in twenty thirteen. Sue and Lynn had long since died,
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  Speaker 1: but their stories are forever intertwined. Five years after that
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  Speaker 1: picture was taken, Chris Dawson was charged with Lynn's murder.
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  Speaker 1: We now referred to her as Lynn Simms at the
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  Speaker 1: request of her family. She disappeared from Sydney's Northern Beaches
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty two, leaving her beloved four and two
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  Speaker 1: year old daughters behind. Inquiries conducted by police and members
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  Speaker 1: of Lynn's family failed to get answers about what happened
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  Speaker 1: to the young mum, but the cold case was given
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  Speaker 1: new life by The Australian's investigative podcast The Teacher's Pet,
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  Speaker 1: created by our colleague Hedley Thomas. In twenty twenty two,
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  Speaker 1: Dawson was brought.
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  Speaker 2: To trial.
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  Speaker 1: Decades in the making.
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  Speaker 3: Chris Dawson found guilty of murdering wife Lynette at Bayview
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  Speaker 3: forty years ago.
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  Speaker 1: Justice Ian Harrison sentence Dawson to twenty four years in
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  Speaker 1: prison for the crime, and now the former rugby league
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  Speaker 1: star is hoping to have the conviction quashed in the
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  Speaker 1: state's highest court. In hearing the case in twenty twenty two,
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  Speaker 1: Justice Ian Harrison didn't dwell on the evidence of Ray Butlin,
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  Speaker 1: the former rugby league player, told the court his wife Sue,
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  Speaker 1: had seen a woman she believed to be Lynn Simms
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  Speaker 1: at a fruit market where she worked in the weeks
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  Speaker 1: after Lynne disappeared from Bayview. Butlin said Sue called Lynn's
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  Speaker 1: name and walked towards her, but that the woman didn't respond.
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  Speaker 1: He said she got into a car and drove off.
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  Speaker 1: Here's what Justice Ian Harrison said about Ray Butlin's evidence.
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  Speaker 3: It is a ma of no controversy in these proceedings
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  Speaker 3: that Lynette Dawson did not drive. Miss Butlin's alleged sighting
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  Speaker 3: fleeting at best would place Lynette Dawson at the Culnara
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  Speaker 3: fruit Barn getting into a car and driving off. Mister
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  Speaker 3: Dawson has submitted that that expression is capable of accommodating
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  Speaker 3: the concept that she got into a car and was
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  Speaker 3: driven off. It follows that the woman seen by Miss Butlin,
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  Speaker 3: having regarded the evidences, highly unlikely to have been Lynette
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  Speaker 3: Dawson if she drove away by herself.
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  Speaker 1: But in court on Monday, Belinda Rigg, the public defender
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  Speaker 1: representing Chris Dawson in his appeal, said Sue Butlin's story
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  Speaker 1: was quite extraordinary. One of the grounds of Dawson's appeal
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  Speaker 1: is that he was at a significant forensic disadvantage in
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  Speaker 1: proving his innocence because of the long delay in bringing
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  Speaker 1: charges almost four decades We've used voice actors to bring
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  Speaker 1: you the words spoken in court.
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  Speaker 2: That's a very clear egis sample of a deceased person
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  Speaker 2: whose evidence was crucial. That very type of detail has
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  Speaker 2: been lost because of the delay. All we have is
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  Speaker 2: an impoverished hearsay account from her former husband.
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  Speaker 1: The Teacher's Pet creator Hedley Thomas wrote on Monday that
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  Speaker 1: placing such weight on Sue Butler's account was a fool's
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  Speaker 1: errand if for no other reason than Ray Butlin openly
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  Speaker 1: admitted his wife was known to tell tall stories for attention.
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  Speaker 1: He said as much at an inquest into Lynn's death
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  Speaker 1: in two thousand and three, and her account of seeing
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  Speaker 1: Lynn Sims at the fruit Barn on the New South
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  Speaker 1: Wales central coast was just that hearsay or gossip or fantasy.
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  Speaker 1: There's no documentary evidence of Sue Butlin's sighting because she
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  Speaker 1: never gave police an official statement. It's not even clear
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  Speaker 1: if police ever spoke to her. Detective Sergeant Paul Magar
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  Speaker 1: from the New South Wales Homicide Squad said he couldn't
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  Speaker 1: recall if it was followed up during the investigation he
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  Speaker 1: pursued in the early nineties, but yet it was Sue
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  Speaker 1: Butlin's story that saw the investigation eventually abandoned. In making
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  Speaker 1: his submissions to the court on Wednesday, Crown Prosecutor Brett
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  Speaker 1: Hatfield said Justice Ian Harrison was right to dismiss Sue
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  Speaker 1: Butlin's story. The reason Dawson cares so much about the
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  Speaker 1: supposed sighting is because it would prove Lynn was alive
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  Speaker 1: after January eighth, nineteen eighty two, when Harrison found she
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  Speaker 1: was killed by Dawson. But Hatfield argued any accounts of sightings,
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  Speaker 1: bank statements or phone calls from Lynn Dawson have come
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  Speaker 1: either directly or indirectly from Chris Dawson. Don't forget. You
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: can access this kind of detailed news analysis and commentary
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: around the clock with a subscription to The Australian check
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: us out at the Australian dot com dot a U
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  Speaker 1: We'll be back after this break. One of the most
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  Speaker 1: important voices in this story is that of a teenage
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  Speaker 1: babysitter known only as j C. Jace was a student
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  Speaker 1: at school on Sydney's Northern Beaches where Chris Dawson taught
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  Speaker 1: in the late nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties. She
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  Speaker 1: came from a troubled home and lived at the house
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  Speaker 1: at Bayview for a while at the end of nineteen
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  Speaker 1: eighty one before Lynn Simms disappeared. She later married Chris
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  Speaker 1: Dawson and they had a child together. Justice Ian Harrison
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  Speaker 1: found the evidence given by j C a trial was credible,
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  Speaker 1: and Chris Dawson's new barrister, Belinda Rigg, agreed he was
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  Speaker 1: right to accept it, with one exception. Rigg argued on Monday,
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  Speaker 1: Jac's account of Lynn's disappearance shouldn't be believed because her
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  Speaker 1: story changed between the time she first gave a statement
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  Speaker 1: to Belice and the trial in twenty twenty two. When
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  Speaker 1: she spoke with Detective Damian Lune in nineteen ninety, j
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  Speaker 1: C said words to the effect of Lin's gone come
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  Speaker 1: back and stay with me. Some years later, she allegedly
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  Speaker 1: told her friend, the author Rebecca Hazel, that Lynn had
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  Speaker 1: taken some time away, and at trial, jac said Dawson
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  Speaker 1: had collected her from a postgraduation trip to Southwest rox
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  Speaker 1: with the intention of installing her at the family home
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  Speaker 1: to function essentially as a wife to him and a
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  Speaker 1: mother to his children. Rigg argued on Monday, Jace's original
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  Speaker 1: account where she said Lynn's gone was the most accurate
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  Speaker 1: because she'd repeatedly asked Dawson when Lynn would be returning.
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  Speaker 1: But Justice Christine Adamson said those kinds of questions were
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  Speaker 1: understandable for a teenager who wasn't at that time operating
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  Speaker 1: under the assumption that Lynn was dead. We used voice
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  Speaker 1: actors to bring you the words spoken in court.
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  Speaker 4: Her evidence is that she asked the question when she
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  Speaker 4: was absolutely at the end of her tether, because she
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  Speaker 4: was eighteen years old and she's looking after a four
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  Speaker 4: year old and a two year old twenty four and
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  Speaker 4: living with the applicant. So the only reprieve from her
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  Speaker 4: point of view is if the mother of these two
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  Speaker 4: children comes back. It wasn't until later when j C
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  Speaker 4: was in Queensland. I think that it occurred to her
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  Speaker 4: as a possibility.
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  Speaker 1: Justice Adamson is one of three Supreme Court justices hearing
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  Speaker 1: Chris Dawson's appeal, along with Court of Appeal President Justice
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  Speaker 1: Julie Ward and Justice Anthony Payne. Belinda Rigg said on
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  Speaker 1: Wednesday there were significant issues with Jc's credibility. The public
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  Speaker 1: defender said Jace may have been motivated to retaliate against
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  Speaker 1: Dawson following their divorce, and said her claim that Dawson
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  Speaker 1: had attempted to hire a hitman to kill Lynn was extreme.
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  Speaker 4: If one looks at the fundamentals of her evidence, they
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  Speaker 4: were all supported. She was very, very significantly corroborated on
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  Speaker 4: pretty much everything that mattered except the hit man, which
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  Speaker 4: was rejected, and the Crown accepts we shouldn't take into account.
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  Speaker 1: Justice Adamson added, judges have to be really, really sure
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  Speaker 1: when they're considering this kind of evidence.
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  Speaker 4: Which may explain why his honor cautiously and appropriately didn't
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  Speaker 4: accept that evidence but accepted everything else.
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  Speaker 1: When he read his judgment over six hours in twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty two, Justice Ian Harrison said repeatedly that it should
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  Speaker 1: be taken in full.
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  Speaker 3: However, my ultimate findings take account of all of the
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  Speaker 3: evidence considered as a whole.
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  Speaker 1: But in wrapping up his submissions on Thursday, Crown Prosecutor
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  Speaker 1: Brett Hatfield said, in appealing his conviction on grounds relating
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  Speaker 1: to very specific findings within the seven hundred plus paragraph judgment,
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  Speaker 1: Chris Dawson's representatives were doing the opposite. The argument is
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  Speaker 1: doing precisely what his Honor said shouldn't be done. Compartmentalizing
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  Speaker 1: different sections of finding. The three justices have retired to
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  Speaker 1: consider their decision on the appeal. While they're weighing up
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  Speaker 1: if Dawson's conviction should be quashed. He'll remain incarcerated at
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  Speaker 1: the Clarence Correctional Center near Gosford. Peter Dutton will deliver
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: his Budget reply speech in Parliament tonight. The Opposition leader
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  Speaker 1: will focus on key issues like migration, housing, community safety
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  Speaker 1: and the cost of living crisis. Come back to the
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  Speaker 1: front tomorrow for our analysis and follow all the action
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  Speaker 1: at the Australian dot com dot au