After hearing brief communications on instructions, the judge thanked the parties for their assistance and reserved his decision shortly after noon.
“I hope to be able to give my judgment relatively quickly. That doesn’t mean tomorrow, I can assure you,” Harrison said.
The defense claims that Lynette left her home in Bayview after being left by her husband at a Mona Vale bus stop on Jan. 9, after experiencing “ups and downs” and “moments of hope and moments of clear despair and anguish “the months before her. disappearance.
David claimed that an “intervention event” that significantly changed the mother of two children’s plans was when Dawson left home shortly before Christmas 1981 with the intention of starting a new life with JC, before they would return to Sydney.
The defense agreed that Lynette would have been “deeply hurt” by Dawson’s behavior.
“He provided a reason why Lynette Dawson didn’t want to be with him,” David said.
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Judge Harrison asked, “A reason?”
“One reason, yes,” David replied.
He said Lynette had commissioned portraits of her daughters not incompatible with leaving the house, as they were arranged before Christmas and before Dawson left with JC.
“When I was … making plans for the future, that hadn’t happened. JC was no longer at home.
JC previously stated that she moved into the house in October 1981 and left in November, after saying she confronted Lynette, who said, “You’ve been taking liberties with my husband.”
David claimed that Dawson had a “more measured and less obsessed approach” to JC than the Crown alleges.
“It started as a proper teacher-student relationship. It changed, and we accept it. “
David said Dawson and JC were married in 1984 and showed that the relationship “involved care and love” and not that he “just prepared it.”
“He’s not just a man who might be using his position to take advantage of a woman he didn’t particularly care about,” he said.
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Asked by Harrison if Dawson used his position to take advantage of a woman “who cared,” David said the defense “wouldn’t say he took advantage of her,” but “would accept that there is an inadequacy “.
David said, however inappropriate that Dawson’s relationship with JC, “doesn’t make him a killer.”
Dawson’s bail was varied, allowing him to report to the police once a week instead of three times.
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