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Former teacher and convicted wife-killer Christopher Dawson will have to wait one year more to be eligible for parole over a sexual relationship with one of his students four decades ago.

The 75-year-old groomed his victim, leading her into sexual activity at his parents' home and taking advantage of her vulnerability due to troubles in her home life, Judge Sarah Huggett found on Friday.

The judge sentenced Dawson for three years commencing August 30, 2039 with a non-parole period of two years.

This total sentence will be entirely subsumed by the 24-year jail period imposed for the murder of his wife Lynette Joy Dawson with the only practical effect being that he will now be eligible for parole one year later on August 29, 2041.

Dawson was sentenced at Sydney's Downing Centre District Court after being found guilty of carnal knowledge as a teacher of a girl over 10 and under 17.

He plans to appeal the June verdict.

Ahead of the sentencing, crown prosecutor Emma Blizard said the teacher's offending was not a one-off but rather a course of conduct that led to his student being groomed over an extended period.

She told Judge Sarah Huggett that Dawson had exploited the victim's vulnerability as part of his crime.

Dawson appeared by video-link from Long Bay prison wearing prison greens and waved to his lawyer as he appeared.

Ms Blizard said the offence was in the middle range of objective seriousness, pointing to the age difference between the teacher and his victim as well as his breach of the trust she would have had in him.

Dawson's lawyer Claire Wasley argued that the objective seriousness was lower because the victim was 16 years old and towards the maximum age of 17 set down by law for the offence.

The crime is the 75-year-old's second conviction after he was last year found guilty of murdering his wife Lynette and disposing of her body in January 1982.

Dawson planned the murder to pursue an "unfettered relationship" with the teenage student, who cannot be legally named.

While he was still married and living with Lynette, he groomed the girl and ultimately engaged in sexual activity with her before the end of the school year in December 1980.

He pleaded not guilty at his trial, although he did not dispute the pair had a sexual relationship.

Dawson's public-defence lawyer instead argued the sexual activity began when the student was no longer in the teacher's class.

The student said they first engaged in sexual activity at the Maroubra home of Dawson's parents, who were out of town.

Former students at the same 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.

However, Friday's sentence 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.

Laws preventing his parole before he discloses the location of her body mean he is expected to never be released.

1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)

National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028

© AAP 2023

Former teacher and convicted wife-killer Christopher Dawson should remain in jail for longer for taking steps to groom and exploit a vulnerable student for sex, a court has been told.

The 75-year-old faces sentencing at Sydney's Downing Centre District Court on Friday after being found guilty of carnal knowledge as a teacher of a girl over 10 and under 17.

He plans to appeal the June verdict.

Crown prosecutor Emma Blizard said the teacher's offending was not a one-off but rather a course of conduct that led to his student being groomed over an extended period.

She told Judge Sarah Huggett that Dawson had exploited the victim's vulnerability as part of his crime.

Dawson appeared by video-link from Long Bay prison wearing prison greens and waved to his lawyer as he appeared.

Ms Blizard said the offence was in the middle range of objective seriousness, pointing to the age difference between the teacher and his victim as well as his breach of the trust she would have had in him.

Dawson's lawyer Claire Wasley argued that the objective seriousness was lower because the victim was 16 years old and towards the maximum age of 17 set down by law for the offence.

The crime is the 75-year-old's second conviction after he was last year found guilty of murdering his wife Lynette and disposing of her body in January 1982.

Dawson planned the murder to pursue an "unfettered relationship" with the teenage student, who cannot be legally named.

While he was still married and living with Lynette, he groomed the girl and ultimately engaged in sexual activity with her before the end of the school year in December 1980.

He pleaded not guilty at his trial, although he did not dispute the pair had a sexual relationship.

Dawson's public-defence lawyer instead argued the sexual activity began when the student was no longer in the teacher's class.

The student said they first engaged in sexual activity at the Maroubra home of Dawson's parents, who were out of town.

Former students at the same 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.

However, Friday's sentence 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.

Laws preventing his parole before he discloses the location of her body mean he is expected to never be released.

1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)

National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028

© AAP 2023

Libyan authorities have demanded an investigation into whether human failings were to blame for thousands of deaths in the worst natural disaster in the country's modern history, as survivors searched for loved ones washed away by floods.

A torrent unleashed by a powerful storm burst dams on Sunday night and hurtled down a seasonal riverbed that bisects the eastern city of Derna, washing multi-storey buildings into the sea with sleeping families inside.

Confirmed death tolls given by officials have varied.

All are in the thousands, with thousands more on lists of the missing.

Derna mayor Abdulmenam al-Ghaithi said deaths in the city could already reach 18,000-20,000, based on the extent of the damage.

He told Reuters he was afraid the city would now be infected with an epidemic "due to the large number of bodies under the rubble and in the water".

The World Meteorological Organisation said the huge loss of life could have been avoided if Libya - a failed state for more than a decade - had a functioning weather agency in place.

"If there would have been a normally operating meteorological service, they could have issued warnings," WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalashe said in Geneva.

"The emergency management authorities would have been able to carry out evacuations... And we could have avoided most of the human casualties."

Other commentators drew attention to warnings given in advance, including an academic paper published last year by a hydrologist outlining the city's vulnerability to floods and the urgent need to maintain the dams that protected it.

Mohamed al-Menfi, head of the three-member council that acts as the presidency in Libya's internationally recognised government, said on X that the council had asked the attorney general to investigate the disaster.

Those whose actions or failure to act were responsible for the failure of the dam should be held accountable, along with anyone who held up aid, he said.

Rescue teams arrived from Egypt, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Qatar.

Among countries sending aid, Turkey sent a ship carrying equipment to set up two field hospitals.

Italy sent three planes of supplies and personnel, as well as two navy ships that had difficulty offloading because Derna's debris-choked port was almost unusable.

The World Health Organisation said it would release $US2 million ($A3.1 million) from its emergency fund to support the victims, calling the floods a "calamity of epic proportions".

It added it would send trauma, surgical and emergency supplies from its logistics hub in Dubai.

Rescue work is hindered by the political fractures in a country of seven million people, at war on-and-off and with no central government since a NATO-backed uprising toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

An internationally recognised Government of National Unity is based in Tripoli, in the west.

A parallel administration operates in the east, under control of the Libyan National Army of Khalifa Haftar, who failed to capture Tripoli in a bloody 14-month siege that unravelled in 2020.

Derna has been particularly chaotic, run by a succession of armed Islamist groups, including at one point Islamic State, before being uneasily brought under Haftar's control.

A delegation of GNU ministers were expected in Benghazi in the east on Thursday to show solidarity and discuss relief efforts, a rare occurrence since the eastern-based parliament rejected their administration last year.

Viewed from high points above Derna, the once densely populated city centre is now a wide, flat crescent of earth with stretches of mud.

Nothing but rubble and a washed out road were left on Thursday at the site of the dam that had once protected the city.

The desert riverbed, or wadi, had already subsided back to a trickle.

Below, the beach was littered with clothes, toys, furniture, shoes and other possessions swept out of homes by the torrent.

Streets were covered in deep mud and strewn with uprooted trees and hundreds of wrecked cars, many flipped on their sides or roofs.

One car was wedged on a gutted building's second-floor balcony.

© RAW 2023