Dougherty off alcohol

"I have done about 10 other programmes. I can't see any use to going through another." David Dougherty

A man once wrongly imprisoned for rape is off alcohol – a common factor in the rest of his offending – after drunkenly assaulting a police officer.

But David Dougherty’s abstinence from the booze is because of ill-health, not treatment programmes.

Dougherty, 49, is best known for being wrongly convicted of the rape of an 11-year-old girl.

He was acquitted after a retrial in 1997 and later awarded $868,728 compensation when DNA evidence proved his innocence.

Nicholas Paul Alfred Reekie was later found guilty of the rape for which Dougherty was jailed.

Dougherty has been in an out of court since, with many of his crimes involving theft – largely because his compensation money was gone within nine years – and other alcohol-fuelled incidents.

He told the Palmerston North District Court on Tuesday, while being sentenced for assaulting a police officer in November, he was no longer drinking, due to pancreatitis. ‘‘I basically can’t take alcohol.’’ He had twice suffered acute pancreatitis, which doctors said he had a 50 per cent chance of surviving, he said.

‘‘It’s enough to scare me not to drink.’’

His assault on the officer, details of which were not read out in court, involved him drinking beforehand because his mother had died.

He told the court a ‘‘very specific incident’’ led him to drinking, after which he got in trouble with police.

Defence lawyer Penelope Walker said Dougherty had wanted to do restorative justice with the officer and was truly sorry for what had happened.

Judge Jill Moss sentenced Dougherty to six months’ supervision, but he took issue with being told to do an alcohol and drug course.

‘‘I have done about 10 other programmes. I can’t see any use to going through another.’’

But the judge left that condition, and one to do counselling, on his sentence.

‘‘Sometimes, conversations about alcohol can help get us talking about different things.’’

Dougherty had written a ‘‘good letter’’ of apology to the officer he assaulted, the judge said.

She also said losing parents was always hard, even at Dougherty’s age.