How Sly’s 2021 Police Officer of the Year tracked down a rapist with barely any leads

A police officer who solved a 30-year-old old rape cold case with almost no clues has been named John ‘Sly’ Silvester’s 2021 Police Officer of the Year, thanks to De Bortoli Wines.

Senior Detective Phil Drews only had a statement and a DNA profile forensics experts had managed to develop from genetic material collected and frozen at the time of the crime.

The original investigators’ master file had been destroyed.

But Drews still managed to track down one of two men who raped a Ballarat mother of five in the early hours of July 22, 1990 – Brett Braddock.

“I sort of started drawing a few conclusions from that, that it wasn’t random or opportunistic, basically that the offender might be someone that the victim would recognise by face but not by voice, someone she’d seen but never spoken to,” he told Ross and Russel.

Press PLAY below to hear the incredible story of how Drews tracked down the rapist

Sly’s Police Officer of the Year received a magnificent prize from De Bortoli – a lunch for two at Locale in the Yarra Valley and a premium mixed pack of Yarra Valley Estate Yinyard Wines.