NZ Herald
February 5, 2004
Inquiry to look into 'deathbed confession'
by Ainsley Thomson and NZPA
A former
policeman's reported deathbed confession that he was warned to keep quiet about
claims of a police pack-rape will be examined in the reopened criminal
investigation.
The statement from the Police Commissioner's Office came after an account from
Peter Crawford, brother of Louise Nicholas who is at the centre of the police
rape allegations.
Mr Crawford said that the week before his close friend and former Rotorua
policeman Trevor Clayton died last year, he broke down and said he wanted to
ask forgiveness from Mrs Nicholas and her family.
He told the Dominion Post newspaper that Mr Clayton had been gagged to keep
quiet about the allegations.
But Mr Clayton's partner, Debbie Upston, denied the
confession happened.
Ms Upston said the men were together for no more than
five minutes. She was only 6m away and could hear their voices and some
laughter.
When she went back into the room Mr Clayton, her partner of 16 years and who
was in the final stages of cancer, had fallen asleep.
She said she could hear the tones of the men's voices during their brief
discussion and knew Mr Clayton, whose moods she was attuned to, was not upset.
"If, and it's a big if, Trevor said sorry for anything, it would have been
the same thing he said to everyone who came to visit."
She said Mr Clayton would say to everyone: "If I have hurt you or family
for any reason I am sorry."
It was nearly a year since Mr Clayton died. "Let the man rest in peace,
and his family get on with the grieving," said Ms Upston.
She said the meeting had been requested by Mr Crawford, not Mr Clayton. Mr
Crawford had been ringing regularly to see if he could visit but Mr Clayton was
too sick and kept declining the request. Eventually Mr Clayton agreed to a
visit.
But Mr Crawford has said that as Mr Clayton lay dying, he wanted to come clean
about what he knew.
The two men had a 20-year friendship and Mr Clayton had been a groomsman at Mr
Crawford's wedding.
Mr Crawford said he knew his sister had alleged that police officers in Rotorua
had sexually assaulted her in the mid to late 1980s, and because of their
divided loyalties the two men did not discuss the allegations in great detail
until a few days before Mr Clayton died.
"Trevor was gravely ill ... He had cancer ... I shot round there to visit
him and we sat down and caught up on some old times and then he quite suddenly
got quite emotional."
"I felt he wanted to get something off his chest with me. He broke down
and held my hand and basically he wanted to come clean with the issues
regarding my sister.
"He certainly wanted to clear, have it all out in the open and have it
cleared up and he was definitely gagged. Threatened maybe.
"He said, 'There's definitely been a cover-up' ... He was definitely
having trouble coping with it because he knew it was illegal."
Mr Clayton was also involved in the case of a second woman whose rape complaint
was bungled by police.
He left the police force in 1990, and said he had suffered post traumatic
stress syndrome "as a direct result of the events in Murupara
in the early 80s".