FORMER Taree woman Roseanne Beckett has been awarded $2.3 million in damages plus costs after successfully suing the state of NSW for malicious prosecution, stemming from her 1989 arrest for alleged crimes against her former husband Barry Catt.
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Ms Beckett, formerly known as Roseanne Catt, was awarded the damages 26 years to the day after she was arrested and charged with soliciting to murder her than husband Mr Catt.
The Manning River Times reported on the arrest on Tuesday, August 29, 1989, that Ms Beckett was also charged with conspiracy to wrongfully accuse another of committing a crime, administering poison, malicious wounding, assault, and possession of a .32 calibre pistol and a .22 calibre semi-automatic rifle and ammunition.
The Manning River Times 1989 article stated that police had evidence that Ms Beckett had offered a 36-year old Wingham man $20,000 to help murder her husband, as well as contacting a 54-year-old Canberra man in regards to shooting him.
Police alleged that Ms Beckett attempted to poison Mr Catt, after a government analyst found high levels of the drug lithium in his food.
Police also alleged that Ms Beckett had stabbed her then husband in the abdomen, assaulted him with a cricket bat and hit him over the head with a rock in separate incidents.
She was sentenced to 12 years jail of which she served 10 before being released in 2001.
Following a judicial inquiry into allegations she was framed her conviction was quashed in 2005.
The actions of former Taree police officer detective Peter Thomas proved pivotal in Justice Ian Harrison's decision to award Ms Beckett the damages.
Justice Harrison in his judgement said that Detective Thomas (now deceased) viewed Ms Beckett "as his nemesis."
Ms Beckett told the court last year that she first met Detective Thomas in 1983 when he investigated a fire at her Taree delicatessen.
During the investigation the policeman made unwanted suggestive comments, she said.
When she complained about these comments, Ms Beckett said she was harassed and charged with arson herself in a case that never proceeded.
She married local panel beater Barry Catt in 1987 before being arrested in 1989 for the aforementioned crimes after Detective Thomas had begun investigating her.
In his judgement Justice Harrison said that Detective Thomas harboured an intense dislike for Ms Beckett.
