Allegations of Abuse
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The
police are facing an unprecedented crisis over allegations of rape against
officers. In this comprehensive report the Weekend Herald traces how long-buried
secrets have come back to life: Louise
Nicholas was getting on with life. She had buried her memories of repeated
rapes by policemen in Murupara, a gang-rape ordeal in Rotorua, the baton, the
inquiries which ran into brick walls. She
had a husband and three growing children, milking to do on a nearby farm,
sheep and calves to look after and, for relaxation, horse-riding. The
36-year-old had "put in a cupboard" what she alleges went on in the
1980s. Then
in early December, a curly-haired reporter arrived out of the blue at their
brick home in Ngakuru. About 12 families live in this lifestyle community on
a back road 30 minutes' drive south of Rotorua; they call it "the
village". It
was a hot day and Nicholas sat outside with the reporter, Phil Kitchin. He
had something to tell her and a thick file to show her. He explained that he
started on the trail two years ago after a tip from a contact. They
sat in the sun for a long time as the Dominion Post reporter explained what
he knew: about Nicholas' allegation that she was gang-raped and violated with
a baton by three policemen in a Rotorua police house in 1986; about the
secret Police Complaints Authority inquiry into the police handling of that
allegation; and her claims that she had been raped by police before, starting
when she was 13. The
conversation would provoke claims which raise questions not just about her
treatment by police but which cut to the core of police culture and attitudes
to women. The three alleged to have raped her in 1986 are She
accuses a fourth policeman, John Dewar, then head of Rotorua CIB, of not
properly investigating her claim. But
Nicholas' story goes back even further, to Murupara, the tough timber town
where she grew up as Louise Crawford in the 1970s. Back then, it was not
quite the troublespot it would become. A sleepy mill town on the highway
between Rotorua and Wairoa, it boomed in the 1950s when pine from the vast With
hunting and fishing on its doorstep, it was a mecca for hard men who loved
the great outdoors. Precut huts for single men were planted on a site bounded
by the By
1955 it had its first policeman, although for some years to come it would be
hailed as a model for understanding between Maori and Pakeha. The
Crawford family arrived in this frontier town in 1970 when Jim Crawford was
appointed store supervisor at the Kaingaroa Logging Company. Louise,
the second youngest of four children and the only girl, was just 3. The
family had moved before, from Rotorua where she was born, to Whangarei, then
back to Rotorua. Her
mother Barbara took part-time jobs to make ends meet, at one stage working in
the local bank. People
led "very full lives", Barbara Crawford told the Herald this week.
"We never sat around doing nothing. Things needed to be done and people
got in and did it." It
was the sort of place where everybody knew everybody else's business.
"People were very friendly; it was a small community." Louise
went to Murupara Primary and Her
parents helped to form a search and rescue service which would bring frequent
contact with the local police. After
a search or training exercise, says her childhood friend, the men would
gather for a few beers, often in Jim Crawford's back shed. Neither girl was allowed
in the shed during these gatherings. It
was at a party after a successful search and rescue operation that, the
friend claims, Louise was raped by a policeman. Twins lost in the Ureweras
had been found and celebrations followed at a volunteer's house. Louise took
food over and ended up staying to babysit. Her
parents stayed the night and, while they slept, she was raped. When she told
what had happened, her father went to "have it out" with the
constable. But the complaint was not followed up. "I
don't think anyone believed her," says the friend. Louise did not have
boyfriends and was not promiscuous. "We never hung out with boys. We had
strict parents." Louise
would subsequently lay rape complaints against four policemen stationed at
Murupara in the early 80s, when she was aged between 13 and 15. The
policemen denied it and without corroboration the matter was cleared as
"not established". For
a young policeman, Murupara was hardly a sought-after posting. "In those
days we had our own law here," a former search and rescue colleague of
Jim Crawford recalls. "We didn't muck around with the police,
really." Other
locals say that in a small community, interaction with the police was
routine. "We were all kind of friendly towards our cops - just treated
them like mates, I suppose." But
by the 1980s, the town was in a downward spiral following logging layoffs. It
was an era of strikes, rising unemployment and youth crime. A
book on policing in the Says
one resident of 30 years: "The police had that 'let the family deal with
it' attitude. If a fight broke out between the gangs and others they would
not get involved. The local rugby guys had to step in." But
for some of the young constables who came and went, this rugged spot was a
chance to cut loose. Or,
as former Police Association secretary Rob Moodie put it: "The attitude
of young males towards women was different. We were like young bulls in a
paddock." Says
another local: "It's okay for anyone to have a social life, but the
police were known to have more fun than others. I know of them hiring out the
local pub for private functions. At one or two of these parties a couple of
them got up to no good with some of the girls they invited. I heard it was
all legal but I think it was still pretty weird for cops." It
was a hard station to fill, says one long-serving Bob
Schollum - one of the three policemen Nicholas alleges raped her in Rotorua -
arrived in Murupara in 1980 from Palmerston North. Aged 28, he had been in
the force for three years. He
was not only good at his job but, locals say, "very good-looking". Schollum
and another officer, Constable Trevor Clayton, became friendly with the
Crawfords through search and rescue. Nicholas' childhood friend told the
Herald that Schollum, like a trusted uncle, used to take the young Louise for
drives. Clayton
formed a friendship with Louise's brother, Peter, which would last 20 years
until Clayton died last year of cancer. But
the Crawfords' time in Murupara was about to run out. Jim Crawford was made
redundant and the family moved to Nelson in search of a new life. Before
long, they were back in Rotorua. One
evening in 1986, Nicholas was walking home from her job as a receptionist
when Schollum, who had transferred to Rotorua, pulled up and offered her a
lift. She alleges he took her to a police house where he, Rickards and
Shipton pack-raped her and violated her with a baton. The
18-year-old recognised Rickards and Shipton, big men into body-building and
partying. "I
protested vigorously about being in the room with them because I knew what
was going to happen. I was saying, ' No, I don't want this, guys.' A
fourth man she did not know, wearing a police shirt but mufti trousers,
witnessed the attack, she says. The baton was put into her anus while she was
made to perform oral sex. "It
was so painful. I remember saying, 'No more, no more,' and rolling away. I
picked my clothes up off the floor and Schollum told me to go and have a
shower, which I did." She
cried as she was driven home and Schollum said, "I'm sorry, Lou,"
when she was dropped off at her nearby flat. A
former colleague who knew Schollum, Rickards and Shipton at the time says
they "were good guys but they were ladies' men, always going on about
their conquests. "They
were out to play and play they did. They were typical guys as far as I could
see. If they were given the chance they would take it and a lot of them were
given the opportunity because girls seemed to go for guys in uniform." It
was a sexist place to work, the colleague says. Partying and womanising by
police was never questioned or frowned on. Another
colleague: "They had a shocking reputation among everyone for stray
rooting but I never heard of anyone making complaints or anything like rape.
It was always consensual, willing stuff. They probably fancied themselves as
studs." "Brad
[Shipton] was a cowboy, very vain. He bulked up all of a sudden." Trevor
Clayton was another well-known player. But it was Clayton, the former Murupara
constable and family friend, to whom Nicholas would turn when she first
complained in 1993 about the alleged Rotorua rape. Nicholas
says she did not tell anyone about the incident at the time because "I
felt no one would believe me because they were police officers". She
says the baton rape was not the end of police sex offences against her. Only
when she formed a relationship with her husband, Ross Nicholas, did police
stop calling on her. She
and Ross, a milk tanker driver, married in 1988; she was 20, he was 23. They
lived in Horohoro, just outside Rotorua. The next year the first of three
children was born. For
most of this time, she says, the abuse by police was too much for her to deal
with and she blocked it from her memory. That didn't mean it wasn't there. It
nagged at her and, in 1993, she decided it had to be dealt with. "Every
time I saw a police car or a uniform ... the hairs on the back of my neck
would stand on end. That's how I've been. I've always had this fear." She
suffered "horrendous nightmares because ... nobody believed me. I've
left them buried for a very long time". She
sought counselling from a sexual abuse counsellor, Margaret Craig, who found
her accounts credible. "I have had people in the past in my office with
these sorts of stories and I have felt that they've been somewhat shaky or
there's been some concerns that I've had," Craig said. "But I never
ever had any with Louise." It
was also time for Nicholas to tell those she loved and was loved by. "As
soon as I decided to deal with it, I decided to tell everyone." Her
family have been fantastic, she says, not least Ross, who has been her rock. He
told the Herald that friends who knew Nicholas' story would sometimes ask him
why he'd stayed with someone with so many problems. It's because, he says, he
believes her and believes in her. Early
in 1993, aged 25, Nicholas went to the Rotorua police station to lodge a
formal complaint. But she says she was persuaded by then CIB chief John Dewar
not to make a complaint in writing. Her
allegations against the trio came to light only after the Police Complaints
Authority was called in to investigate police handling of a previous rape
complaint made against the police in the Detective
Inspector Rex Miller and other senior police were brought in to conduct a
Police Complaints Authority investigation into Nicholas' claims. The
PCA inquiry, whose existence was made public only this week, looked at
whether Dewar had conspired to cover up the 1986 allegations but found he had
not committed any criminal or disciplinary offence. The
investigation discovered that Dewar had failed to record a formal statement
of complaint from Nicholas. His failure to record and investigate the
allegations showed a gross lack of judgment and competence, the inquiry
found. Early
in his investigation Miller spoke to former sergeant Ray Sutton, to whom
Nicholas had repeated her allegation of rape by the three officers. "Ray
made notes in relation to his interview with Louise and mysteriously his
notebook disappeared from his desk," he said. It
was Miller who stood up to be counted this week after Nicholas went public.
Now retired, he had kept his notebook of interviews with her "because I
had some unease". He says he found her story compelling, but met a wall
of silence from Rotorua police. "I
believed what she told us," he said. "But we had to go on what
evidence was available and the corroboration was just not there." Miller,
a man with a keen wit but a steely sense of purpose, said Nicholas was
"moulded like play dough" into not making a complaint. He
said that a month after he was given a statement from Nicholas, in which she
said she was raped by the three officers, Dewar took another statement from
her, in which she indicated the sex was consensual. Asked
if he believed her, Miller said: "Well, I didn't believe the second
statement." He
said it was inappropriate for Dewar to have taken the statement at all.
Nicholas' contradictory statement had brought her credibility into issue. Nicholas
was also "poisoned" towards the PCA investigating team, which led
to her making statements that "clouded her credibility". "I
think she was very naive and easily manipulated, almost like play dough. "She
was able to be moulded how they wanted." It
had also been unprofessional of Dewar to investigate close associates, he
said. By
1995, counsellor Margaret Craig had become so disturbed by Dewar's influence
on her client that she wrote to police national headquarters outlining her
concerns. She said Dewar was picking up Nicholas from her home and taking her
to lunch before bringing her to counselling. "That
began to concern me because I knew she was very vulnerable." Craig
says she received no reply for five months, after which she again approached
national headquarters. From the reply, she concluded the police were
"covering their backs". Dewar,
now with the St John Ambulance in "I
spent a lot of time with Louise and dealt with her in an absolutely
professional way," he told the Weekend Herald. "I was sympathetic
and compassionate. I believed her and trusted in what she was saying to be
the truth." He
said he spent countless hours at Nicholas' home, going through the process
the police would follow about her complaint, informing and briefing her and
her parents. "There
was no coaxing, no persuasion. She made informed choices and had counselling.
I liaised closely with her. If that is moulding then I am guilty of moulding
... "I
did not mesmerise this girl over a period of 18 months. She knew and
understood what her options were. What more can I say?" But
in footage taken by a hidden camera and broadcast on One News, Dewar admitted
to Nicholas he knew at least some of the physical contact between her and the
three policemen was without her consent. "I
certainly knew that the part regarding the baton was not consensual. It would
be hard to understand why you would consent to that." Yet
he told the Sunday Star-Times Nicholas had to "take responsibility for
what happened". "She
said it was part of a different life. She never said anything about sexual
offending in groups. She said she had a relationship with them separately. "The
impression I gained was she received a certain degree of satisfaction being
present among police officers. They made her feel important, gave her mana.
She seemed to relish the attention from these very important and powerful
men. She said she was ashamed and embarrassed about what she allowed these men
to do to her." He
says he handled the investigation with the blessing of his district
commander, the late Trevor Beatson, who took the matter to regional commander
Assistant Commissioner Bruce Scott. It
was agreed Dewar should handle the inquiry because of the serious nature of
the allegations and because the detective constable in charge of the sexual
abuse team would have been investigating a superior. Nicholas
says she originally believed Dewar had treated her fairly until she was shown
various documents from the PCA investigation. "I
have since learned that the police officers he advised me not to make a
written complaint about were friends and associates of Mr Dewar," she
said in a statement. Some
time after the investigation, Dewar was removed from his command at Rotorua
police by the Deputy Commissioner of the time, Barry Matthews, who sent him
to work in Miller
says the three accused policemen were counselled. This was the only
discipline available because the investigation was outside its 12-month time
limit under police regulations. Schollum
and Shipton are no longer policemen. Shipton owns bars in Tauranga and
Hamilton and is a colourful Tauranga District councillor. One of his
establishments, the Schollum
appeared in the Herald in 1989 after rescuing two children caught in a rip at
Mt Maunganui. He said afterwards the most fearful part was walking up the
beach in his by then transparent underpants. "That gave some of the
women in the crowd a few chuckles," he said. He
became police prosecutor in Napier before leaving the force in the late
1990s. In 1999, he applied for a licence to sell used cars and now works at
Stephen Hill Motors in Miller
says Rickards, the only one still in the force, admitted having sex with
Nicholas with another person present, but denied raping her or using a baton
on her. "I
know I laid it on the line to him loud and clear as to what my expectations
of a police officer were. I didn't beat around the bush. "It
doesn't matter who's carrying it out. It's not professional behaviour and
it's not the behaviour you condone from a young constable." Rickards,
born and raised in Rotorua of the Tainui subtribe Ngati Hikairo, was no stranger
to trouble. Petty crime as a teenager brought him into contact with the
police but he knew he wanted to be one of them. He joined as an 18-year-old,
too young to make arrests. A
profile in the 1979 Trentham police college yearbook, written by classmates,
lists rugby and beer as his pet loves. His ambition: commissioner. But the
most likely outcome, his colleagues predicted, was: "Black Power leader
in Rotorua." "Clint
would tell anyone who would listen he was going to be the first Maori police
commissioner," a veteran officer said this week. "And he would step
on whatever toes he had to in order to get there." Another
former colleague found him aggressive and controlling. "When he left A
detective by 1983, Rickards spent four years in Rotorua and did a stint
undercover. Transfers would later take him to Otahuhu, Hastings,
Invercargill, Papakura and Hamilton. When,
in 1997, assistant commissioner Rob Robinson promoted Rickards to become the
country's youngest police chief, in the Gisborne district, Rex Miller was
dismayed. "I
told him he would regret the decision, that it wouldn't be wise because
Rickards was carrying a bit of baggage. And he [Robinson] said, 'No, no,
he'll be good, he'll be good." Two
years on Robinson, then deputy commissioner, accepted Rickards' eventually
successful application to head the But
the rape allegations would come back to haunt Rickards in 2000, when he was vying
for the job of deputy commissioner, a position requiring the Prime Minister's
approval. After
Robinson told Helen Clark about the allegations and investigation, she
recommended Steve Long, the man appointed this week to reopen the police
investigation of the complaints. Yet
Robinson did not cast Rickards adrift. In 2001, by now commissioner, he
promoted Rickards to assistant commissioner, bringing him to headquarters to
run a troubleshooting support team for him. He
then appointed Rickards head of the Robinson
said this week he did not believe "sexual proclivities" should
necessarily come into employment decisions. After Helen Clark announced a
commission of inquiry, he conceded his promotion of Rickards might form part
of the inquiry. The
Government's quick move to defuse any political fallout this week was in
itself highly unusual. When on Sunday afternoon Herald political reporter
Kevin Taylor contacted the Prime Minister's office about Rickards, it was
Helen Clark who phoned back to explain why she had not recommended him for
deputy commissioner. Two
days later, as police reopened the criminal investigation and Rickards was
stood down, Helen Clark ordered an independent commission of inquiry. "The
allegations are extremely serious and suggest a systematic cover-up of
misbehaviour by the police," she said. The
inquiry will look at the police handling of their investigations into
Nicholas' claims and the "culture" within the police. It will look
at other, possibly related claims which came out of the woodwork this week.
Kaitaia woman Judith Garrett alleges she was handcuffed and raped in the
Kaitaia police station in 1988, when she was 44. Charges were never laid
against the officer, Constable Tim Ogle. Garrett
told the Herald: "He's been in And
a Murupara woman, whose name is suppressed, is seeking compensation over the
police handling of her 1982 rape complaint. The 38-year-old, twice raped by a
shopkeeper when she was 16, received a formal apology from Robinson in 2000
after a damning report into police handling of her complaint. Amid
these developments, more details emerged of Nicholas' story and of police
culture at the time - from Miller, from Craig and from former Rotorua
policewoman Carolyn Butcher, who was in the same squad as one of the three
men. She told One News her baton went missing at a police party in the
mid-1980s. When it was returned, she was told it had been used for sex. Then
on Wednesday, Louise's brother Peter Crawford said former policeman Clayton
had confessed on his deathbed that he was warned to keep quiet about the
allegations. "He said, 'there's definitely been a cover-up', said
Crawford. "He was definitely having trouble with it because he knew it
was illegal." After
18 years, Nicholas could scarcely comprehend the developments this week.
After the letdown of Miller's investigation, she had returned to the
lifestyle block and "got on with life" with Ross, a milk tanker
driver, and their three children, aged 14, 12 and 9. Her
family knows everything, she says, and her children understand that things
happened to their mum at the hands of policemen that should never have
happened. "We'd
sort of put it away in a cupboard and got on with life but we thought, who
knows, it may come out one day," she told the Herald. Louise
and Ross Nicholas didn't crack open a bottle of champagne when the commission
of inquiry and new criminal investigation were announced. They are rural
people. They did have a beer as they took constant phone calls. Ross,
who has stood by her throughout her journey, was elated for his wife. "I
called it Louise Day. We need a public holiday." To
Nicholas, it marked a change which she summed up with the words, "they
can put away their brooms now". At last, she is being listened to. Who's
who in the police investigation CLINT
RICKARDS BOB
SCHOLLUM BRAD
SHIPTON JOHN DEWAR REX MILLER ROB
ROBINSON MARGARET
CRAIG |
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