John Button (campaigner)

John Button (born 9 February 1944 in Liverpool, England) is a Western Australian man who was the victim of a significant miscarriage of justice. Button was wrongfully convicted of the manslaughter, by vehicle impact, of his girlfriend, Rosemary Anderson, in 1963.

On 9 February 1963 19-year-old Button and his 17-year-old girlfriend Rosemary Anderson were celebrating his birthday at his parents' house when they argued and Anderson decided to walk home. Button followed her in his car but she refused to get in and continued walking. Button smoked a cigarette before driving on to find her lying injured on the side of the road. He then took her to the surgery of a local GP, Dr Quinlivan, who contacted the police and organised an ambulance to transfer the still living but unconscious Anderson to Fremantle Hospital, where she died shortly before entering surgery. Dr Quinlan instructed Button to remain for the police, who arrived at the house and commenced their investigation, transferring him to Central Police Station after a short review of the road site where the murder took place. Button had a bad stutter and police interpreted this as being nervous due to the questions he was being asked. Button was refused access to his parents or a lawyer and was hit once by an interviewing police officer before finally confessing to killing Anderson after 22 hours of interrogation.

Charged with wilful murder, for which he could have been executed, the jury's lesser conviction of manslaughter brought him a sentence of 10 years imprisonment, of which he served 5 years in Fremantle Prison and Karnet Prison Farm, before being paroled. The serial killer, Eric Edgar Cooke, confessed to the murder of Anderson when arrested in 1963, giving details withheld by police that only the killer would have known, and again when on death row, including immediately before his execution, at which point he swore on a Bible that he was the offender. At Button's subsequent appeal, little credence was given to Cooke's testimony as the vehicle Cooke claimed he had used had an external steel sunvisor. The appeal judges did not believe a body could be thrown "over the roof" as Cooke claimed without ripping the visor off and dismissed the appeal.

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Wikipedia