add support for docutils==0.16

[mherkazandjian]

+-------------------+----------------------------+------------+------------+
| **Prepared by:**  |                            | Date:      | Signature: |
+-------------------+----------------------------+------------+------------+
| J\. Smith         | foo         | 01/11/2020   |                         |
+-------------------+----------------------------+------------+------------+
| **Contributors:** |                            | Date:      | Signature: |
+-------------------+----------------------------+------------+------------+
| C\. Prime         | XXX                        |            |            |
|                   |                            |            |            |
| J\. Foo           | YYY                        |            |            |
+-------------------+----------------------------+------------+------------+
| **Authorised:**   |                            | Date:      | Signature: |
+-------------------+----------------------------+------------+------------+

in the above example the \. part is problematic with docutils 0.16
when parsing the .rst to a dom and then to a etree via lxml