Chris Dawson sentencing LIVE updates: Lynette Dawson’s ex-husband jailed for minimum 18 years over murder

Justice Ian Harrison has said Chris Dawson is likely to die in jail after he sentenced him to a minimum of 18 years in prison for the 1982 murder of his first wife, Lynette.

• The sentence is backdated to August 30, when he was found guilty, and Dawson is first eligible for parole on August 30, 2040, at the age of 92.
• Dawson’s full 24-year sentence would not expire until August 29, 2046, when he would be 98.
• The NSW parliament passed new “no body, no parole” laws after Dawson was found guilty in August of murdering Lynette, whose body has never been found. The laws “make it impossible for offenders who willfully and deliberately refuse to disclose information about their victims’ remains to be granted parole”, Premier Dominic Perrottet said in September.
• Harrison did not consider the extensive media attention surrounding Dawson’s criminal charges and trial as a mitigating factor. “As harsh as it may sound to say so, Mr Dawson is now the author of his own misfortune,” Harrison said.
• Dawson’s sentence should reflect “the disapprobation with which his self-indulgent brutality must be viewed by Australian society”, the judge said.
• Dawson has filed a notice of intention to appeal against his conviction.

Read the full story here.

When she vanished from her northern beaches home in January 1982, Lynette Joy Simms left behind two adored daughters and a loving community of family and friends desperate for answers.

Forty years later, her then-husband Chris Dawson is likely to die in prison, Justice Ian Harrison said today as he sentenced the former teacher and Newtown Jets rugby league player to a maximum of 24 years in prison for her murder. Dawson maintains his innocence and has lodged an intention to appeal against his conviction.

“Chris Dawson has had 40 years of freedom. Now, it’s our turn,” Lynette’s brother Greg Simms said.

Asked what freedom looked like, Simms paused.

“We don’t know what we’re going to do. We’ve been pursuing this for 40 years.” It was time, he said, to “find out what normal really is like”.

This is Michaela Whitbourn signing off on our live coverage. You can read more on the Dawson sentencing from my colleague Sarah McPhee here.

Lynette’s brother Greg Simms said outside court today that “for our family, Lyn will always be remembered as a happy, gentle, generous, loving daughter, sister, mother, niece and friend”.

It had been a “very long, painful and challenging journey”, Simms said after his former brother-in-law Chris Dawson was sentenced today to a maximum of 24 years in prison for murdering his then-wife Lynette, 33, in 1982.

“At last we have justice for Lyn, and that was our main aim,” he said.

Dawson was not charged over his wife’s murder until December 2018. He was found guilty of the crime by Justice Ian Harrison in August this year.

“Chris Dawson discarded her; the Dawsons disregarded her; from today on, we would like her to be known and remembered as Lynette Joy Simms,” Greg Simms said.

In comments later echoed outside of court by Lynette’s brother Greg Simms, Justice Ian Harrison said in his sentencing remarks today that Chris Dawson had treated his then-wife as “completely dispensable”.

“Mr Dawson’s sentence should reflect the disapprobation with which his self-indulgent brutality must be viewed by Australian society,” he said, before sentencing Dawson to a maximum of 24 years in prison.

Harrison said Dawson had murdered Lynette, then 33, in 1982 “for the selfish and cynical purpose of eliminating the inconvenient obstruction she presented to the creation of [a] ... new life with [babysitter and former student] JC”.

“Tragically her death deprived her young daughters of their mother so that a significant part of the harm caused to others, and by inference to the community, as a consequence of her death, is the sad fact that Lynette Dawson was treated by her husband, the father of the very same girls, as completely dispensable,” Harrison said.

Lynette’s brother Greg Simms said outside court that his sister should now be known by her maiden name.

“Chris Dawson discarded her; the Dawsons disregarded her; from today on, we would like her to be known and remembered as Lynette Joy Simms,” he said.

NSW Police homicide squad commander Danny Doherty also spoke outside court this afternoon and had this to say:

Today, the gavel of justice came down on Chris Dawson and signalled the final chapters of this challenging and protracted criminal investigation and judicial process.

I’d like to commend the spirit and thank the family for their unyielding spirit and their support and their search for the truth.

I’d like to commend the investigators, both prior investigators and current investigators. This has been, since 2015, with the Unsolved Homicide Team under Strike Force Scriven.

In early 2018, they submitted a compelling brief of evidence to the DPP which ultimately resulted in the arrest of Chris Dawson in late 2018.

I’d also like to acknowledge the efforts of the DPP - their professional advocacy in this matter has been outstanding. So, thank you.