NZ Herald
February 2, 2004
Nicholas inquiry may look at other cases
by Patrick Gower
Police may widen
their investigation into the Louise Nicholas allegations to include other
mishandled sex complaints in the same district at the same time.
Commissioner Rob Robinson last night confirmed he was aware of the two other
cases in the
He was responding to Herald inquiries which found:
* A police investigation was ordered
into the conduct of an experienced police officer who gave evidence in two sex
trials which collapsed in the Rotorua District Court.
After a man was acquitted of sexual impropriety in a third trial, the judge was
scathing of the officer's conduct and awarded the defendant $20,000 costs for
going through three trials.
* In 2000, Mr Robinson issued a formal
apology to a 35-year-old woman who had complained to Murupara
police that she was brutally raped in the early 1980s and whose case was badly
mishandled.
There are parallels between the latter case and that of Mrs Nicholas, who has
claimed that she was pack-raped as a teenager by three officers in a Rotorua
police house about 1986.
Both women lived in Murupara around the time and both
have battled to get police to respond.
Mr Robinson said the cases could be looked into as part of the internal inquiry
he ordered into Mrs Nicholas' allegations being led by Deputy Commissioner
Steve Long.
"My first tasking for Mr Long is to focus on Mrs Nicholas' complaints. And
indeed, wherever that takes us there may be the indication of a need for a
wider review.
"It is something that may emerge sooner rather than later. I'm not
sure."
National Party police spokesman Tony Ryall said last
night that any inquiry should be broadened in light of the other cases.
"There has been a large number of matters raised
and we need to see if they are relevant to the inquiry."
Detective Inspector Graham Bell investigated the case of the Murupara woman, whose name has been suppressed, after she
complained that no one looked into her allegations against a local shopkeeper
until, some years later, he was charged with other rapes.
Now retired and presenting the television show Police 10-7, Mr Bell told the
Herald he had been concerned by what he learned of the Murupara
police. "I got the impression there was an unhealthy culture among the
police who were stationed at Murupara at that
time."
Mr Bell also wanted it known that he was not the police officer criticised in
the court case.