Former rugby league player and teacher Christopher Dawson used to feel like god, before everyone found out he murdered his wife to take off with his student.
He referred to himself as “god” in letters he wrote grooming the teenager he had an unlawful sexual relationship with in the 1980s.
The 75-year-old appeared anything but god-like in the NSW District Court more than 40 years later, requiring frequent breaks in his old age and sometimes struggling to follow the proceedings as he faced trial earlier this year, having already been found guilty of murder in 2022.
He swore repeatedly after Judge Sarah Huggett found him guilty of carnal knowledge as a teacher of a girl over 10 and under 17 in June, a verdict he plans to appeal.
Dawson faces sentencing on Friday for the historical charge, replaced in 1986.
It is unlikely to affect how long the 75-year-old spends in jail.
He received a 24-year sentence for murdering Lynette Dawson, whose body has not been found after her disappearance in 1982, and laws preventing his parole before it is mean he is expected to never be released.
A student in Dawson’s year 11 sports coaching class, known during the trial by the pseudonym AB, said she became engaged in sexual activity with him between July and the end of the school year on December 12, 1980.
He pleaded not guilty, but it was not disputed the pair had a sexual relationship, with Dawson’s public defender contending it began when she was no longer in his class.
AB said they first engaged in sexual activity at the Maroubra home of Dawson’s parents while they were out of town.
Former students at the Sydney northern beaches school described seeing her sitting in Dawson’s lap and him standing between her legs on school grounds and in his office.
AB’s colleague at a supermarket recalled a threatening Dawson demanding he stay away from her, the judge finding he perceived the teenager a rival.
Dawson’s Friday night appearances at a pub where students drank underage were not providing support and counsel for AB’s domestic issues, as claimed.
The judge found he went to the pub and told self-aggrandising stories to endear himself.
“Behaviour consistent with a person who on occasion, referred to himself as god,” the judge said.
© AAP 2023
