THE idea of languishing in a jail cell for more than a decade for a crime you didn’t commit is the stuff of nightmares.

Yet incredibly that is what happened to Dutchman Romano van der Dussen, who was jailed for 15 years for a string of rapes.

In what is emerging as a gross miscarriage of justice, he was found guilty despite the fact that DNA evidence at the scene of the crime did not match his, while he claimed he was 12km away at the time.

It is incredible that an innocent man can be jailed on nothing more than witness statements, flying in the face of all other evidence that points to the contrary.

That is 11 years of his life that van der Dussen will never get back.

Subscribe to the Olive Press

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.