The other victim of Chris Dawson's crimes.

On Tuesday in the NSW Supreme Court, Justice Ian Harrison's focus was on one thing - did Chris Dawson murder his wife Lynette?

He concluded yes after summarising in a five-hour long judgement the details that led to that fateful day on January 8, 1982.

Watch the Chris Dawson verdict here:

Dawson had a strong motive - something the Crown called "out with the old in with the new." The new being his teenage student whom he'd allegedly groomed before having sex with.

As Justice Harrison went through Dawson's movements in meticulous detail, he also went through those of 16-year-old 'JC,' as she was known to the court. 

It made me sad. And mad. And horrified. She was not the focus of this trial, but to hear how this teenager's life was steamrolled by this man was just another element that made the whole judgement hard to listen to. 

A then 33-year-old Dawson was a PE teacher at Cromer High. He first pursued JC through the final years of high school, leaving notes of love and affection in her schoolbag in 1980 and 1981. The Australian reports he had noticed her in Year 10, and altered the roll to ensure she would be in his class.

He wasn't the only teacher at the time who has since been accused of pursuing school girls - students these grown men had been hired to teach. 

With a troubled home life, Dawson became JC's confidante. Soon he was calling her "petal" and "beautiful bub" and signing off his love notes as "God" so no one would know it was him. 

He hired JC as a babysitter and she stayed in his and Lyn's house, just so he could have her in his home.

JC told the court they'd have sex when his wife went to bed. 

Lynette Dawson was murdered by her husband in 1982. Image: NSW Police. 

After murdering Lyn, he married JC. They moved to Queensland with his daughters and had a child together.

She divorced him in 1990 and went to police that same year, with allegations about Dawson's involvement in Lynette's disappearance. 

After hearing her story through the judgement and trial, one thing is very apparent - JC was a child when she met Dawson. A child with a rough home life who got swept up with a married teacher who was obsessed with her. 

“It wasn’t a relationship. I object to that… I was a child!” JC told the court, accusing Dawson multiple times throughout the proceedings of grooming her.

As a Year 12 student in 1982, she went to South West Rocks with her sisters and friends for a camping trip in January. She called Dawson every day because he "begged" her to. 

While she was away, Lynette Dawson was murdered so Dawson could pursue an 'unfettered' relationship with JC.

"I am satisfied that distressed, frustrated and ultimately overwhelmed and tortured by her absence up north, Mr Dawson resolved to kill his wife," the judge said on Tuesday.

Chris Dawson arriving at court on Tuesday, August 30. Image: AAP/Dean Lewis. 

Dawson drove up the coast after murdering Lyn, to collect JC and bring her back to live in the family home full-time.

But as she told an inquest into Lyn's disappearance in 2018, "I didn't like being there. I didn't like looking after his children.

"I just wanted to do what people do when they are 18."

During the 2022 murder trial, she described at one point feeling like his "prisoner" and "sex slave." Their house in Queensland felt like a compound with its six-foot high fence, and while raising her baby daughter in those early years she "didn't leave." Dawson controlled everything about her life.

Of course, we've all been thinking about Lynette. She was killed by the man she loved, and her family still have no body to lay to rest.

JC was a victim too. 

On Wednesday, Lyn's niece Renee Simms told The Today Show: "We have always thought that she’s a victim in this too.

"We are so incredibly grateful that she had the courage and the willingness to come forward because she played a pivotal role in getting us a verdict that we got yesterday.

"So we’re incredibly grateful and we absolutely do not blame her at all for any of this."

Her life was forever altered by this man as well. Her teenage years irrevocably influenced by an adult who stole her innocence. 

As she told the court, "He was twice my age, it wasn’t an equal partnership, it was a power imbalance."

Feature image: The Australian/Mamamia.

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