About Revert "Check pointer before deferenging"

[Matteo Casalin]

Hi Caolán,
     first of all thanks for the rationale in your revert (commit 
8a3f61c42b7dfd7221bd7bc9d9a5a70c052a0bf5), I understand it is not 
mandatory but it really helps.
I introduced those checks while visually scrolling through code for a 
previous commit. Is there a rule of thumb on whether these checks are 
required or not (and where), or should I just rely on reports from code 
analysis tools?

Kind regards
Matteo