Former detective John Dewar has been found guilty on four charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice in his handling of rape allegations made by Louise Nicholas. It's a vindication of Nicholas, who has been accused again and again of being a liar; now we can see who the real liars are. Unfortunately, thanks to the actions of John Dewar, three of them have managed to escape justice. One of the problems for the prosecution in the trial of Rickards, Shipton and Schollum was that the offences were so long ago, allowing time for memories to fade and testimony to therefore be seen as less reliable. Were it not for Dewar's cover-up and well-poisoning, these offences would have been tried in the mid-90's, when memories were fresh. While it is difficult to second-guess a jury, I think it is fair to say that the chances of conviction would have been better back then than they were in 2006.
The task now is to make sure that such abuses never occur again. And I think an important step is to make sure that Clint Rickards is never allowed to resume his position in the police.
