All language subtitles for After the Night s01e03_Engish

My name's Roderick Gerald Noble,

and in 1963 I was 13.

Perth was very quiet in those days.

Very well-off people lived here.

But it's a very small place.

Everyone knew everyone
or seemed to know everyone.

Over this side, anyway,

this side of the river.

That's the Western Suburbs side.

Every backyard had an outside dunny.

Still works. It's a beauty.

Everyone had buffalo grass
and the Hill's Hoist clothesline.

And they'd spin you around
while you were swinging off it.

Kids lived out here, basically.

We had a fabulous life.

We were footloose and fancy free.

And all of a sudden,

there was the body on the back lawn.

(DRAMATIC MUSIC BUILDS)

It was like it happened yesterday.

Even now, I can see that backyard.

I can see the body.

Still today,
I have trouble sleeping.

This thing will never go away.

(THEME MUSIC)

So you run, run, run

From everything you are

And you're lost

With every scar

And you say my name
like it's a game

But you can't hide

I see you there

Behind the lies

You'll never know the pain

Comes and goes in waves

That cannot be erased

We've only been through it

Long enough to remember
the price we paid.

(PIANO PLAYS)

- Perth was blown apart by a major,
major crime wave in 1963,

especially within
the Western Suburbs.

It shattered our world,

shattered my world.

It shattered everybody's world.

Perth changed forever, instantly.

The police were right onto it,
of course.

Daryl Beamish was locked up for life

for the hatchet murder
of Jillian Brewer.

John Button was in jail for
running down Rosemary Anderson.

And now we had the shooter
for Shirley McLeod.

It was Eric Edgar Cooke.

REPORTER: Perth was numb
in September '63.

The cruel killer who'd terrorised us
for most of the year

was a truck driver with seven kids.

- It was a great relief that

the police were
getting on top of things.

Although we were all aware

that the killer responsible for
the shootings on Australia Day

was still at large.

But there was a twist.

My police section...

I was yet to discover
that the good work of the police

was far from good.

John Button was completely innocent.

This is a cover up by the police.

Once police had confirmed that
Cooke had shot Shirley McLeod,

they started to think
that he might be behind

the Australia Day shootings.

They all had a similarity.

The victims had all been shot
accurately in the forehead

with a .22 calibre rifle.

It was so certain to police
he was the one,

but they had no evidence.

So they had to find
the murder weapon,

because the gun was different from
the one used to kill Shirley McLeod.

- But Cookie wouldn't talk to them.

So that was where I come
in the picture.

I was down the football club
on my only day off. (LAUGHS)

Inspector Lamb, he said,
'We dearly want a cough,'

meaning admitting.

I said, 'Well, OK.'

So I went down and saw Cookie,

and he did the old trick.

'No, not me, Mr Baker.
Not me, not me.'

'Yes, it is you.'

So we put him in the car
and drove around.

Nedlands, West Perth,

everywhere.

- So they took him on a tour
of the Western Suburbs,

where the Australia Day shootings
took place,

hoping to prompt a confession.

But instead, he just took them
to lots of houses

where he confessed to
a variety of thefts,

some peeping Tom crimes,
stealing cars.

There were so many.

You could pretty well say
that in those days

if you caught somebody in your
backyard or looking in your window,

it was most likely Cooke.

But that wasn't what they wanted.

- What I was doing is seeing how
he reacted to everyone

that we went past.

You know, you'd say,
'How about that one, eh?'

And he'd say,
'No, no, not that one.'

But he was a person
that'll tell lies.

We stopped at the Albion Hotel

and bought him some
curried chicken and rice.

As we sat there,

I thought, 'Oh jeez,
I've had enough of this.'

'He's never said a bloody word
to me,

so I've gotta get it from him.'

Now it's in the report.

And I said,
'Hey Cookie, you're going to hang.'

'There's not much doubt about that.'

'Now think about your wife and kids.

Are you going to be dragged to
the gallows like a mongrel dog

or are you gonna go like a man?'

And he actually hit the right spot,

because Cooke was very fond
of his family.

- Spluttering his curried chicken,
he said,

'Mr Baker, what do you want
to know?'

I said, 'Did you shoot George
Walmsley and the others that night?'

Cookie said, 'Yes,
I'm the bloke you're looking for.'

'What happens now?'

- And so then Cooke himself

told the police
how he did everything.

- I think I want a drink.

- I think I'm thirsty.
- I'll get it off, don't worry.

- There's the Narrows Bridge,

and he was there
with the detectives.

Cooke had a great memory,

and he could remember that he
threw it from light pole number 324

with an over arm motion.

(PIANO PLAYS)

And there it is.

That rifle that Cooke had stolen
and used on Australia Day

was still there
in ten centimetres of silt.

After all those years of hunting
for Cooke and getting the pressure,

quite a trophy.

- Understandably,
it was a terrific relief,

not only to members of the public,

but also naturally, of course,
to the police.

- Oh yes, great jubilation,
for everybody.

- For the first time,
I felt relief.

People just breathed out.

- But Cooke,
once he started confessing,

he didn't stop.

- Dad held a party.

My sisters had friends
staying there that night,

and it went on quite a while.

At the end of it,

Dad used to throw whisky bottles
and plates on the back lawn

and wash them out.

We got up early.

Dad used to go to the beach
every morning,

and often I'd go with him.

And I went to the toilet,

right at the back of the yard.

Opened the door, like that.

Mum was behind me.

And down on the grass was a body.

She was nude.

I thought it was one of my sisters.

She had the whisky bottle
from the party under an arm.

My mum started calling out and found
out all the girls were safe.

And then I thought, 'She's dead.'

(PIANO PLAYS)

I just thought, 'She's dead.'

It was Constance Lucy Madrill.

She was a lovely girl.

We played cricket in that laneway
all the time.

We used to hit the ball into her
backyard often,

and she used to throw the ball back.

During the night,

he strangled her with the bed flex
of a Bakelite lamp

that was on the bed.

He dragged her through the house.

Had sex with her outside,
on the back lawn.

And dragged her into our backyard
and put her on our back lawn.

(TENSE MUSIC)

Dad rang the police.

They came down the laneway.

They must have been shattered
when they saw it.

Really shattered.

- Oh, it was shocking.

Everything was investigated,

the city, the suburb and country,

everywhere,

with no days off.

We were full up,
right up to there.

- And all of a sudden there were

Criminal Investigation Bureau
everywhere.

They took over
our house as headquarters.

They thought he'd come back
because this one was strangled,

and all the others were shot.

At the time I just felt awful.

I just thought,
'I wish they'd catch him.

I wish it was over and done with.'

INTERVIEWER: Do you think
it was associated

with the other crimes at the time?

Definitely not,

because she wasn't shot,

and he shot every other one.

I couldn't believe it.

- Really?

I couldn't believe it.

- The police hadn't linked

Lucy Madrill's strangling
with the shooter.

They were looking for a shooter
and a strangler.

Cooke's confession
to the Madrill killing

was a huge shock to the police.

They took Cooke
to the Madrill property

and he walked them through again
in minute detail.

He'd strangled her
with the cord of her own lamp.

He'd dragged to the back garden
of the house behind.

These details hadn't been
reported in the paper,

so they had to accept
this confession.

What a shock.

The shooter and the strangler
was one and the same.

- How do you feel toward him?

Bitter.

Yeah, very bitter.

My whole life changed,
from that morning.

There's no counselling, no therapy.

I've never talked about it
like this before.

- Really?
- Yeah.

Still today,
I don't know why he did that.

Then, there was another
completely unexpected turn.

Cooke started confessing to murders

that other people had already been
named as responsible for.

Pnina Berkman and Jillian Brewer.

The police were convinced that
Pnina Berkman's boyfriend,

who had fled back to Greece,

was responsible for her murder.

And Jillian Brewer,

they already had their man.

They had that odd 19-year-old,
Daryl Beamish.

They had him put away for life.

And then he confessed to
running down Rosemary Anderson.

- When Eric Edgar Cooke
confessed to running down Rosemary,

this was the first time
that something gave me hope

to be released.

I would have been able to maybe
put the pieces back together again.

- John did not do it.

Thank God someone
has come forward to admit.

- My father, Ken Hatfield,

went to visit Button in prison

and told him he wanted
to get the appeal

to prove that John was innocent.

- I was just waiting for someone
to come and release me.

But that is not what happened.

- The police, they had to
investigate everything.

So they took Cooke
to Stubbs Terrace,

where Rosemary was run down.

They took him there and said,

'Alright, Cookie, you tell us
all the details.'

And he did.

So he's showing the detectives

where he first saw her
walking along the road,

where he did a U-turn,

where he came back behind her,

and where he hit her.

But the location Cooke pointed to
where Rosemary was struck

was out by a few metres.

She was lying in the sand
further on than he'd said.

- But he also said on the record
he had stolen a car that night.

He said that after he'd hit Rosemary
and damaged the car,

he drove it to Kings Park
and smashed it into a tree

to disguise the damage.

- So they took him to the tree.

Wrong tree.

The one that he pointed out was
three or four trees away

from where that Holden
had been found.

- He had a bloody good memory,

and his memory let him
down on that one.

So they knocked him out of that one.

He was found out telling lies.

- The police, they wouldn't
believe him.

The man they thought
had done the killing,

John Button, was locked up in jail.

- Cooke thought he was
going to be executed,

and it was my belief that he was
extending time,

causing us investigations
and the court proceedings

and that sort of thing,

to delay and spar for time.

- They were certain Cooke was
lying about Rosemary Anderson.

They said, 'Cookie, you're lying.
You didn't do this.'

So he retracted that confession.

He confessed to Rosemary Anderson
in the morning,

and he retracted it
in the afternoon,

and he apologised
for taking up their time.

- I was devastated.

Our last chance of getting
that appeal were dashed.

- In those days,
punishment for murder

was capital punishment.

And the community was very upset.

He's a vicious and violent murderer,

and he doesn't deserve any sympathy
from anybody whatsoever.

- He's caused so much unhappiness
and sorrow to people.

They shouldn't waste money
on trialling him or nothing,

a man'll do what he done.

I think he should definitely hang.

Until he is hung,

the book can't be closed.

(GAVEL BANGS)

- At the time,

people they wondered, you know,

what the motivation might have been.

Was it somebody taking revenge
on middle-class people, for example?

- The fact that he would
come over to Nedlands,

and they were all people around
this area that he murdered.

He had a harelip and a cleft palate
and would have felt inferior.

INTERVIEWER:
People in this part of town,

are they inclusive
of people like...

No, that was all in his head,
I'm sure.

- I think he'd gone through his life
feeling pushed aside

because of that disfigurement,

and it had created a terrible,
terrible blind rage in him.

And somehow,

he took it out on
society at large.

He had a...

a white-hot
sort of revenge on society.

- Do you think he was proud
of what he did?

- I believe he was.

It seemed to give him
a great feeling of self-importance.

- The court found Cooke guilty,

And he was sentenced to death.

I remember to this day it was 1964.

I think it was in the October,

and everyone knew he was
going to be hanged that day.

We were sitting outside,

waiting to go into classes.

Come 8 o'clock that morning,

we sat silently,

thinking about what was happening

a few kilometres down the road
at Fremantle Prison.

I was on tenterhooks.

(TENSE MUSIC)

- But then, on the morning
of Cooke's execution,

he was in the punishment cells
behind the gallows.

He voluntarily took the Bible
out of the Minister's hand,

and holding it, said

'I swear before Almighty God,

I did kill Brewer and Anderson.'

- And a minute later
they hanged him,

and he was gone.

I was thrilled.

It was a relief.

I know Mum and Dad
were very relieved.

- I knew there was something
wrong about this.

I knew there was something
terribly wrong about this.

It happened in all the films.

The good guys won.

The baddies died.

But I just seemed to think
even then,

there was something going wrong,

something I didn't agree with.

- After five years,

I got parole,

so I got released from prison
late December 1967.

I came out believing I was going to
hang around with the mates

I used to hang around with before.

But friends dropped off.

They obviously believed
that I was guilty,

and that hurt.

It wasn't a very good moment.

- The hurt,
thinking all these people,

they don't believe me, still.

Think the hurt
of Jack and Joan Anderson,

the parents of Rosemary Anderson,

still not believing in him.

You must think of it all the time.

Why? Why can't they believe me?

- And all of a sudden,

this life that I'd yearned for
for so long

was just a myth.

And I think it was at that point
that I lost all hope,

and I started falling into
deep depression.

Certainly growing up,

I was very clear in my awareness

that my dad was a criminal

and served time in prison
for manslaughter.

When I was ten, eleven years of age,

I remember driving up this road
with my parents

and my mum made a passing
comment to my dad.

'John, there's your old home.'

I looked up at that looming
limestone wall,

and as a ten-year-old,
it really sunk in.

My dad had lived the other
side of that wall

for a period of time.

I guess that was the moment
when the enormity,

the deep sadness and the pain
of what my dad had experienced

started to take hold of me.

As I was growing,

I noticed my father was still
imprisoned emotionally within.

I think I started to take on
my dad's fight.

It was so important for him,

and that was therefore
so important for me.

I believed my father was innocent,

but now we need proof
that he was innocent.

- And then I come into the picture.

As fate would have it,

I met John Button's brother Jim

at a dance soon after.

That's me dancing with Jim Button,
in fact.

(LAUGHTER)

I love dancing.

Jim told me his brother had served
time in prison

for a murder that Cooke said he did.

Well, I did not believe him,

but I believed
in the justice system.

I believed in the police.

But I'm a nosy journo.

I was curious.

- I remember the phone rang,

and it was my Uncle Jim.

He had met this woman who was
an investigative journalist.

She was really keen to meet my dad.

So I got some time alone with John,
then,

who told me his story.

I was pretty intrigued by the story,

and I wondered what was
there in the police files

about Eric Edgar Cooke
and John Button.

And through my government networks
as a press secretary,

I was able to access
all the Cooke and Button files

that hadn't been public

and had just been archived
all those decades.

This is the transcript
of Button's trial,

right back in 1963.

I arrive at the police files,
the record section,

not knowing what I'd find.

If anything, I thought

I would find something that would
find John Button guilty.

(READING) Very seldom
locked the door...

But after a couple of days,

I found something really
extraordinary.

Confessions that Cooke made

that the police didn't make
public at the time.

Why would they keep them quiet?

That's Cooke's handwriting.

There were boxes of them.

And in those confessions,

I found his confessions
to other violent crimes,

other hit runs against women.

(TENSE MUSIC)

Well who were these women?

I had to track them down.

It's really interesting
to go through it with you.

Among all his confessions,

I found Glenys Peak.

I'm walking down here,
minding me own business.

I heard this car start up.

I got to about here,
when I heard the car rev up.

I thought, 'Oh my God,
he's going to hit me.'

And then all hell broke loose.

One minute he was coming
down the road,

the next minute
I'm flying through the air.

And all I could think of was,

'I've got to get home.
I've gotta get home.'

I kept screaming
that he was coming for me.

He's coming for me.

Then I got the ambulance,

and they took me to Perth,
to the hospital.

The next day, I could not be
in the house on my own.

I was absolutely scared stiff
that he was going to come back.

I still cannot walk
on the side of the road.

- This was the same
as Rosemary Anderson.

A woman walking along a dark street,

late at night on her own.

The MO was exactly the same.

And then I discovered more.

- It was raining quite heavily,

and luckily, we'd brought
our umbrellas.

- Yeah.
- And we turned

and we heard this car roaring,

headed straight for us.

I said, 'Look out!'

Maureen was hit

and carried on the bonnet
of the car,

'till when he turned left
at Cross Street,

and then she rolled off.

Georgina was hit to the side.

I had blood everywhere.

My back was gashed open,

and my head.

- I just ran because I thought,

'He's going to come back and get me,

'cause he knows that
he didn't get me.'

I had to sleep with my parents
for a long time,

because I was scared.

- Just scared.

Cooke had confessed to this,

where he stole the car,

where he saw the women,

where he ran them down,

and where he abandoned the car.

And at the bottom,

it was stated that the police
and the Crown

accepted those confessions
as correct.

Well if Cooke did do
these five other hit runs

and the police and the Crown,
the state, accepted them,

then hang on.

That's what really got me going

and pursuing this story
very strongly,

because I believe the cover-up
of the other hit and runs was that,

had we people of Perth
at the time known

that that was an MO of Cooke's,

that he did it on
five other occasions,

we would have been much more open to
John Button's pleas of innocence.

All it could be was

that if this showed that Cooke
was the killer of Rosemary Anderson,

it would prove that they had
the wrong person in prison.

- Estelle came around
to share with my parents

that she had discovered a confession

of other hit and runs
that he had done.

- She told me in the police files
there was a single page

of five other accidents

where Eric Cooke was involved
in running down females,

which showed that Eric Cooke's
modus operandi

was identical to what happened
to Rosemary.

- It was a pretty
overwhelming moment.

There was this energy for my mum

and my brother and myself
and my dad of,

'We've got this, you know.

We... This is...

This is the time to
really clear my dad's name.'

- It gave me hope that one day
I'd be able to get back

into living again.

But there was still a big problem.

John had confessed
to killing Rosemary.

We believed that if he confessed
to the crime, he must be guilty.

I began to reappraise the evidence

and wondered if there was truth
to the claims

that he confessed under duress.

I began to interview the police.

One most interesting one I did was
with Detective Sergeant Max Baker.

He said, 'Things happen
that you wouldn't read about.

You might persuade the fellow
with a couple of rib-ticklers,

such as that would be far better
if he told the truth. (LAUGHS)'

He was laughing through this.

'And that's where you went
out of bounds.'

He told me this.

- I do have a habit of hunches.

I've put numerous people
in jail for ...

One reason, I didn't believe
what he was saying,

and I kept at it.

If you think that
they're still guilty,

you go to the boss and say,

'Look, they've all said no.
I reckon it's yes.'

'Well Max, if you think that they're
still guilty, go and have a go.'

'Don't give up, just ...
just try again.'

- This confirms to me they knew
they'd got an innocent man.

After that for me,
everything changed.

I knew John Button was innocent,

and I needed him proved innocent.

Being part of the community,

how could we allow this to happen?

I really felt I needed to take
responsibility

and do something
to make a difference.

I didn't think it was right that
John Button

should go through
the rest of his life as a murderer.

I really wanted to get him
a new appeal.

There's justice to expose.

I wrote a book about Cooke,

the life and crimes of Cooke
that were never known before.

We published it.

Couple of weeks later,

the Attorney General
granted a new appeal.

Wow, we had a new appeal
for John Button.

- I saw that hope
reignite for my dad.

This is the time that someone's
going to take responsibility

for what happened to my dad.

- But I was very nervous

about whether we had enough
fresh evidence to win.

REPORTER: John Button spent
five years in jail

for killing his teenage girlfriend,
Rosemary Anderson.

37 years later, he's won the right
to a second appeal.

But the struggle to clear his name
is far from over.

Today, the DPP argued that
Eric Cooke's confessions

aren't proof.

The Crown are entitled to insist
on strict proof of these matters,

and we'll prove them.

- We published Estelle's book
in The Post newspapers.

Her book was a masterpiece
of research.

That was that incredible photo of
Eric Cooke in front of his car.

I'd met John,

and he certainly didn't seem
like the sort of person

who was capable of
killing someone deliberately.

Accident scene...

Or even losing his temper enough
to accidentally kill them.

Amazing stuff.

His story seemed to stack up.

- And this was where I lived.

- But the fresh evidence
of the other hit runs...

- This fence wasn't there.

- That was important,
but it was not proof

that Cooke in fact was driving
the car

that killed Rosemary Anderson.

- It was all... this was all open.

- That's not evidence.

I mean, belief is not proof.

I reckon that the answer to
solving all crimes

always lies in the science.

So then I went searching
for someone who knew all about

car versus pedestrian crashes,

the science of it,

and I tracked this fellow down
in the United States,

a bloke called Rusty Haight.

I paid his fare to come out here
and run some crash tests.

I said to Rusty,

'I don't want you to come
here to prove John innocent.'

'I want you to come
and prove the truth.'

'If these tests show John is guilty,
well so be it.'

(SOFT INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC)

I remember my parents and I heading
down to the Claremont Showgrounds

for this test to be conducted.

Bret sourced cars to be used.

- Four Simcas, and the Simca was the
car that was owned by John Button.

And I also bought a 1961 Holden.

Now that was the car that Eric Cooke
said he had hit Rosemary with.

- Rusty brought his own mannequins
and equipment needed.

- The crash test dummy was the
same size as Rosemary Anderson.

Weight is actually not material,

but roughly the same height
is important,

because humans have a high
centre of gravity,

and if they're struck by a car,

they tend to wrap around
the front of the car

because most of the weight is above.

This was a really huge moment,
and I think at that time,

we were all caught up in the
excitement of possibility.

- There you go. Alright, now.

Go ahead and give her a...
Whoa, whoa, slowly, slowly.

- The tests, they were going to show

whether John was a liar
and a killer,

or whether he was totally innocent.

I felt pretty anxious, yeah.

That's probably good.

Prisons are full of people
who never did it,

according to them.

So when John Button and his case

was referred to the
Court of Criminal Appeal,

there was shock, outrage and fear
among the general community.

I couldn't believe it.

I thought no judge
could be so stupid.

John Button, he had signed
a confession.

If he'd signed it,

we had to accept it
as being the case.

The confession was real, yeah.

And they had got to it
in a trustworthy way.

It was a shock.

You confess to the crime,
you've done it.

You don't confess to a crime
you haven't done.

That's the way we thought
at the time.

REPORTER: There's been appeals
and counter-appeals.

John Button even took his case
to the High Court,

but it failed.

Now it's his last chance,

the result of journalist
Estelle Blackburn

uncovering startling new evidence.

- We had the whole State against us,

A Director of Public Prosecutions
with a whole team

working against us volunteers.

- But of course, that was just
going to be the start of it.

We'd need to get three judges
over the line.

Very difficult when there's
existing conviction.

- Court of Criminal Appeal Matter
number 122 of 2000,

Button against the Queen.

- The Crown fought us
every step of the way.

I've never fought a case as hard as
I had to fight that one,

because there was no cooperation
from the prosecution at all.

Yes, may it please the court,
I appear ...

The fresh evidence

is put through the hoops,
if you like,

and only submitted if
it is found to have cogency.

These are copies of the photographs
that were given to the judges.

These were the undamaged cars,

showing the vehicles
prior to the tests.

We built a gallows contraption
to suspend the dummy,

and Rusty drove the three Simcas
at the dummy

at three different speeds.

He wanted to assess whether you'd
sustain any damage

to the front of the car,

if you hit a lifelike dummy
at the speed

that the police said
John Button hit Rosemary.

And it was an absolutely
graphic representation

of what had happened to her.

It was horrible.

It was really quite...
very, very sickening,

for all of us, but for John,

it was a nightmare come true.

You start thinking that's the way
it actually was.

That's the way it actually happened.

I was devastated.

All I could think of
was her being hurt.

It's the only thing
that went through my mind.

- You'll see that massive
amount of damage there,

and damage to
the leading edge there,

which is not evident
on the police photographs

of John Button's car.

It's probably clearest
in that photograph there.

See the line of the ...
all the bonnet's completely crushed.

INTERVIEWER: Does that mean that
if John Button's car

had have hit Rosemary ...

That would have happened to it.

So it's clear and obvious
that John Button's car

could not have hit Rosemary,

because that would have been
the damage to his car,

especially had he hit her
hard enough to kill her.

That is the... That is the
really salient point.

- In every case with the Simca,

there was no damage
to the front of the car.

The whole damage was to
a massive dent in the bonnet.

- These Supreme Court judges
were told that Eric Cooke

not only confessed to killing
Rosemary Anderson,

he gave precise details about how
he ran her down in a stolen car

that he later crashed in Kings Park.

- I thought it was a big volume
of evidence for John,

but to buttress that,

he then went and got a car
of the same type

that Cooke we know
was driving that night,

a Holden,

and conducted
the same sort of tests.

- Cooke's confession
to Rosemary Anderson's murder

was that she'd gone up
on the bonnet,

that she had come up under
the sun visor on that old Holden,

and then rolled off
onto the side of the road.

- So Rusty drove this Holden

at the speed Eric Cooke said
he was travelling,

about thirty-five miles an hour,

and it hit the dummy at high speed.

This is a picture showing
the Holden hitting the dummy

and the dummy cartwheeling
over the front of the car.

You can see the head
contacting the bonnet

and contacting the sun visor there.

- I think the reason the police
refused to believe Eric Cooke

was that it had a sun visor,

and if a body hits
and gets caught under the sun visor,

it would rip the sun visor off.

- Here it is leaving the sun visor,

and the sun visor popping back
into place,

and not even cracking the paint
on the sun visor,

let alone ripping it off
or damaging it.

The police report said that
Rosemary's body

had been displaced
well off the side of the road,

two to three metres in fact.

When Rusty hit the dummy
with the Simca,

there was no displacement or
anything like that.

It just sort of rolled up
onto the front of the car,

but then just sort of rolled off.

Whereas with the Holden,

it was the same as Cooke's
description of it,

and the police report.

- We knew a decision
was to be delivered,

and the build-up to that

was a really powerful moment.

- Silence in court. Please stand.

You always have these very nervous
moments before verdict.

We all rose to receive the court.

However, the Chief Justice,

he read a twenty-minute spiel
about it.

- All of this material
needs to be considered

against the background of
Mr Button's youth at the time.

- One minute you thought,
'We're gone.'

The next minute you think,
'We're getting up on this.'

And the next minute you think,

'They've got a problem with this.'

Similar fact evidence points
directly to the likelihood ...

- You never know.

Sometimes you have verdicts
go the wrong way.

INTERVIEWER: What were you feeling
at that point?

Pretty sick.

Very nerve-wracking.

We had to sit there
for thirty minutes,

listening to him give the facts
of the case and ah-di-dah.

- Whether the appellant's Simca
motor vehicle was involved

in running down Ms Anderson...

- I remember holding my dad's hand.

My mum sat holding his hand as well.

And it was intense as we waited.

- I have concluded
that the evidence of Mr Haight

is sufficient to raise
a reasonable doubt.

All combine to lead me
to the conclusion

that the verdict must be regarded
as unsafe and unsatisfactory

on the grounds...

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

..on the ground that there has been
a miscarriage of justice.

(SOFT INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC)

- My dad didn't do it.

This is proof that others
can see and know as well.

And it was just this most amazing
and delightful relief.

REPORTER: John Button finally had
his day in court

and made legal history after
nearly forty years

of fighting to clear his name.

- It was amazing.

It was a wonderful moment.

- Oh, relief, vindication.

Finally we've got there.

- We were able to prove that Button
didn't kill this girl

and that Cooke,
beyond almost any doubt, did so.

We were over the moon.

Oh, Rusty.

Oh, it's been absolutely
unbelievable.

It's a wonderful time over here.

I just wanted to savour the moment.

I was freed, finally.

Exonerated.

Completely freed.

I... I knew life was going to be
different again.

- After John Button's appeal,
I was exhausted.

But I was really pleased to know

that my research had helped
clear his name.

But I couldn't shake from my mind

the appalling way the police
had treated John,

and I had this nagging feeling

that he wasn't the only victim
of police misconduct.

So I delved into another case,
Daryl Beamish,

who'd been sentenced to
life imprisonment

for the killing of Jillian Brewer.

And what I discovered
absolutely floored me.

(THEME MUSIC)

We had really only
just scratched the surface.

And of course at the back of my mind
as I walked out of the case,

I was thinking,
'Well now we have to do Beamish.'

- And suddenly, it occurred to me.

I thought, my God, that's the bloke!

- I see it as a private holocaust.

It only belongs to me.

- The police took justice
into their own hands.

- He wouldn't have a
bar that Beamish was innocent.

- Very, very light on detail,

and yet this is what
he was condemned to death on.

- I'm so angry
the police got away with it.

- It's changed us all, hasn't it?

And I don't think you will ever
find your freedom.

- I said, 'No matter what happens,
don't run away from it.'