Australia’s most wanted: chiropractor on the run dies on Anzac Day

A Campbelltown chiropractor on the run from the law since 2006 has died just days before police could arrest him.

Warwick John McEwen was 71 when he succumbed to a terminal illness and passed away in a South Australian hospital on Anzac Day.

McEwen was wanted by police after he failed to appear at Campbelltown Local Court in 2006 to face 45 charges of sexual assault of children.

He was included in both the national and the state’s 10 most wanted list as police continued the search to find him and bring him before the courts.

Inquiries as to McEwen’s whereabouts led police to a South Australian hospital earlier this month where he was being treated for a terminal illness.

Sex Crimes Squad detectives had been liaising with South Australian Police in relation to the feasibility of McEwen’s arrest, but were informed he died in hospital on Monday, April 25 – Anzac Day 2016.

McEwen had already served a prison term after being found guilty of sexually assaulting a young girl while she was his patient.

He spent almost three years in a farm prison near Tumut, on the edge of the Snowy Mountains in the state’s south.

But McEwen had done a runner soon after being released when police charged him with an incredible 45 counts of alleged child sexual assaults committed more than 25 years earlier in Campbelltown.

That was way back in 2006, and for the next 10 years he was a fugitive from the law.

A well know fugitive when added to NSW and the national 10 most wanted lists.

Speculation over the years had him on the Gold Coast in Queensland and other parts of the country.

McEwen had always protested his innocence, even after being found guilty and sentenced to jail the first time.

An earlier trial had resulted in a hung jury, but later police, armed with new witnesses and evidence, pressed on and eventually got a result.

When he was released, a little early as reward for good behaviour, everyone including McEwen assumed that was it and he would go back and lead as normal a life as anyone could in his situation.

McEwen could no longer practise as a chiropractor, his licence having been taken away from him.

But when police announced the 45 new charges in 2006, McEwen must have decided that he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life in prison and took off.

In a statement issued by police today confirming his death, they say that no further action will be taken on this matter and McEwen has now been removed from the state’s most wanted list.