Firefighter Andrew Dadley wins appeal against rape conviction

A top firefighter has won his appeal against a conviction for raping a woman after a work Christmas party following a DNA mistake.

A top firefighter has won his appeal against a conviction for raping a woman after a work Christmas party following a DNA mistake.

A trace of DNA found on the woman was matched to Andrew Thomas Dadley, 46, but the Court of Criminal Appeal said on Tuesday that expert evidence was that the DNA could not survive for more than 12 hours and the woman was not tested at a hospital until 17 or 18 hours after the alleged assaults.

Andrew Dadley (right) embraces supporters as he leaves the Supreme Court. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Bianca De Marchi

Andrew Dadley had risen to the rank of Superintendent.

The appeal court said the DNA evidence was more consistent with a secondary transfer as a result of the woman having picked up DNA “in relevantly innocuous circumstances”. He had slept in her bed after the Christmas party while she slept in her son’s bed.

Dadley, who as always strenuously denied the allegations, had been convicted by a District Court jury last year of one count of sexual intercourse without consent and one count of indecent assault but acquitted of a second count of sexual intercourse without consent.

The appeal court found that the two guilty verdicts were “unreasonable” and inconsistent with the acquittal.

The judges said they could not identify how the jury could have believed the woman in relation to two counts and not the third.

Dadley had been sentenced to three years and three months in prison.

He had been sentenced to three years and three months in prison with a non-parole period of two years but has been on bail pending the appeal.

The court heard that the woman, who had drunk 10 to 12 schooners and two spirits, invited Dadley and another colleague to sleep over at her place after the trains stopped running following the 2016 Christmas party at the Graphic Arts Club at Mascot.

Dadley said he had drunk six schooners, three glasses of wine and a gin and tonic.

The woman said she was not “blithering drunk” and had woken up to find Dadley raping her. She said he then carried her into the other bedroom and assaulter her again.

Dadley said he woke up in the bed in which he had gone to sleep as the woman was hitting him and he asked her: “What’s wrong? Why are you hitting me.”

“In my opinion, the verdicts on Counts 2 and 3 were inconsistent in the requisite sense with (Dadley’s) acquittal on Count 1,” Justice Andrew Bell said.

Dadley (centre) always strenuously denied the allegations. Picture: John Grainger

“This acquittal was explicable, in my view, only by doubts the jury must have held as to the (woman’s) credibility. There were no other eyewitnesses.”

The appeal court said the jury must have been influenced by the trace of DNA detected in the woman’s vagina following a Sexual Assaul Investigation Kit test.

The court said expert evidence revealed an inability of such DNA to survive in the vagina for more than 12 hours, whereas the SAIK test was performed some 17-18 hours after the alleged assaults.

“The DNA evidence was more consistent with a secondary transfer as a result of the (woman) having picked up (Dadley’s) DNA in relevantly innocuous circumstances,” the court said.

The woman had given evidence that she “frog marched” Dadley from her apartment while he was wearing no pants or underpants but the other colleague, who had been sleeping on the couch, gave evidence he saw Dadley wearing pant at the time.