Innoceat man freed

Press, 27 July 1981, Page 9

Innoceat man freed

NZPA London A man described as a beast after he was convicted two years ago for raping a 10-year-old girl guide, has been cleared by the English Court of Appeal. Lord Justice Lawton ordered the immediate discharge of Edward John Covill, aged 32. who has spent 30 months in jail. Mr Covill. of Stratford-on-Avon. Warwickshire, in custody since March. 1979 and given a six-year jail sentence after his conviction in Birmingham the same year, had his conviction quashed and sentence set aside.

Lord Justice Lawton said there was no doubt that Mr Covill, who was convicted on circumstantial evidence, had been the victim of a miscarriage of justice. The judge praised the team of 12 policemen from the Warwickshire force whose intensive inquiries after the file was reopened in Januarv this year led to the Crown announcing that

Mr Covill’s appeal would not be opposed. Mr Covill’s first action after his release was to thank two of the officers who cleared him, Superintendent John Atkins and Detective Sergeant Graham Sutherland. He said: “I am so grateful to them: but for their investigations I would still be in prison. I am really looking forward to going home and having a champagne celebration.

“My friends believed I was innocent throughout and supported me. In fact the whole town was behind me." He added that he would seek compensation.

Mr Covill was described as being of low intelligence and often seen walking in the streets of Stratford with his mother.

His ordeal began after the attack on thhe girl in Shottery Fields, Stratford, on February 27, 1979.

The girl guide could not identify Mr Covill. but he was in the vicinity of the rape and used a distinctive

brand of after-shave as described by the victim. He also made inconsistent statements to the police. “Justice,” a law reform group, became interested in the case and the file was reopened when the mother of the victim received a letter, purporting to come from her daughter’s attacker. Lord Justice Lawton said the author also gave details of a similar sex attack on another young girl, in Cheltenham in 1976. and the details were such that he must have been that attacker.

There was no evidence linking Mr Covill to Cheltenham.

The Warwickshire team unearthed 12 witness statements after the Stratford attack which were not available during Mr Covill’s trial.

A tractor driver in one of them described how a stranger had approached him in Shottery Fields on the day of the attack, asking about footpaths and the' age of pupils at the school nearby.