UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT
A feature length television film for TV1
 by Donna Malane and Paula Boock
Produced by Lippy Pictures Ltd

Until Proven Innocent is a feature length film for television based on the true story of David Dougherty who in 1993 was found guilty and imprisoned for the abduction, sexual violation and rape of an 11 year old girl.

It took two trials, two high court appeals, a petition to the Governor General and 3 and a half years in prison before David finally won his freedom and was found not guilty of the crime he didn’t commit.

The David Dougherty case is referred to as ‘the other Arthur Alan Thomas’ because in so many ways it mirrors that earlier infamous wrongful conviction.

Whereas the Thomas decision hinged on police tampering with evidence, the Dougherty case highlights serious issues surrounding DNA evidence during the early 1990s.

Very few people know that the true heroes of this real-life drama were three people who had never met David Dougherty. A lawyer, a scientist and a journalist each separately came to believe that an innocent man had been wrongly found guilty, and their extraordinary actions led to the case being revisited again – and again – until the guilty verdict was finally quashed and a new retrial found him ‘not guilty’.

Why did they do it? They weren’t, like Dougherty’s father and partner, loved ones who had known the man for years. They weren’t after publicity or money, and his was hardly a popular case to champion in the public forum. After all, the 11 year old victim had named her neighbour David Dougherty as her attacker.

Murray Gibson, Arie Guerson and Donna Chisholm each took on the Dougherty case because they were consumed with unease about the facts. Unease turned to concern, concern to outrage, and outrage to obsession as they encountered obstacle after obstacle in their crusade to overturn the conviction. These were three people who couldn’t bear to think that an innocent man was in prison on a life sentence. They didn’t have to do anything about it, but they did. And we all owe them.

Because at the time David was struggling to prove his innocence, the real rapist Nicholas Reekie, was on the loose.

In fact, having already abducted two children, Reekie went on to rape at least two other women. Had he been imprisoned for the 1992 rape, would he have been able to commit these subsequent crimes?

Because of the efforts of Gibson, Guerson and Chisholm, in 1997 the jury finally pronounced David Dougherty “Not Guilty”. And in 2003, Nicholas Reekie was convicted, finally, for the crime David had served the sentence for.
 
This is a heart-breaking yet heart-warming story. It’s a story that should be told. A story that will be told.