The Lounge
Fight for justice
by Sarah Barnett
The crusade against an innocent’s guilty conviction.
In 1997, David Dougherty was acquitted of the 1993 abduction and rape of an 11-year-old girl and he walked free after serving three-and-a-half years of his wrongful sentence. Some four years later, he received a public apology from then Justice Minister Phil Goff and compensation of almost $900,000. He remains the only man to be acquitted using DNA evidence.
In 2003, Nicholas Reekie was found guilty of a string of charges, including the rape for which Dougherty was convicted. Commentators at the time said that if the DNA had been assessed properly to begin with, Reekie’s subsequent assaults could have been prevented.
Sunday Theatre returns this week with feature-length drama Until Proven Innocent (TV1, Sunday, 8.30pm), based on the crusade by Dougherty’s lawyer, Murray Gibson (Peter Elliott), scientist Arie Geursen (Cohen Holloway) and journalist Donna Chisholm (Jodie Rimmer) to have him freed. After two High Court appeals and a petition to the Governor-General, during which time supporters of the Crown case against Dougherty reached for ludicrous explanations for why the DNA didn’t match, Dougherty finally joined the small, sad ranks of those – like Arthur Allan Thomas – who have done time for crimes they didn’t commit.
A happy ending? Gibson told reporters at the time of Dougherty’s release that his client, who screamed when he heard the guilty verdict, was all but broken by the experience.
