On September 1, 2003, he was riding his Suzuki motorbike in Christchurch around the same time that a 22-year-old woman was dragged into bushes off Colombo Street and raped by a passing motorcyclist.
Farmer was arrested, but when the case came to trial, his public defence lawyer failed to present the alibi evidence.
Shamy applied to the Court of Appeal, which quashed Farmer's conviction and ordered a retrial.
The woman told police her attacker had a motorbike, stank of cigarettes and alcohol and had a stubbly beard.
His disability made him an easy target for the police who lied to him, claiming that his DNA was found on the victim.
He noted that an identity parade had never been conducted and that samples submitted to Environmental Science and Research had not been followed through in a timely way.
She wrote numerous letters to Government officials demanding help for her son, who she said had been wrongly imprisoned.
Even though his conviction was quashed, he was not automatically eligible for compensation under Cabinet guidelines because the Court of Appeal ordered a retrial.
Fisher identified six inconsistencies between descriptions of the rapist and of Farmer, and said his conviction "relied upon nothing more than a visual identification by the Complainant of a kind that is notoriously unreliable.
[11] The Crown also made a formal apology to Mr Farmer for "the loss of liberty and reputation, interruption of family and personal relationships, and mental and emotional harm.