Dominion Post
March 4, 2004

Judges censure police over handling of Nicholas' rape complaints
by Philip Kitchin

Two judges have sharply criticised the way police handled Louise Nicholas' rape complaints against three officers.

It has been revealed – after The Dominion Post successfully had some suppression orders lifted in three rape trials against a fourth man – that investigating officer John Dewar's failure to record her allegations against the three officers brought a stinging rebuke from Judge Michael Lance in 1995.

Mr Dewar failed to properly investigate multiple rape complaints made by Mrs Nicholas against now Assistant Commissioner Clint Rickards and ex-policemen Tauranga city councillor Brad Shipton and Napier car dealer Bob Schollum.

Yesterday, after an application by The Dominion Post, Judge Lance lifted most of the suppression orders on three trials of a man whom Mrs Nicholas accused of raping her when she was aged about 14, several years before the alleged rape by the three police officers.

The man, whose name remains suppressed, was acquitted after the third trial. The first two trials were aborted because Detective Inspector Dewar, then Rotorua CIB chief, gave hearsay evidence at critical points of the Crown case.

Judge Lance, who presided over the third trial, later ordered police to pay $20,000 in costs.

Mr Dewar assigned himself in 1993 to investigate complaints by Mrs Nicholas that she had been raped by four men, in two separate incidents. She said three of them were serving police officers who allegedly pack-raped her at a police house when she was aged about 18.

Details of the allegations against the three policemen emerged during the three trials of the man later acquitted but were suppressed at the time. Mr Dewar told the court that he advised Mrs Nicholas not to record those allegations because they were not specific in "time and event".

Court documents show Judge Lance made a stinging rebuke of Mr Dewar's conduct.

"I am of the view the failure to record and detail these allegations was not only remarkable, it was utterly incredible," Judge Lance said in his decision granting costs against the police. "After all, here was an experienced detective inspector investigating allegations of serious sexual offending.

"During his interview with the complainant, he is told of allegations of potentially serious sexual offending by three other named and currently serving police officers.

"Such disclosures should have triggered alarm bells that would have permanently silenced Big Ben, no matter how vague in terms of time and event.

"Even more surprising than the failure to record is the officer's deliberate advice to the complainant not to make a statement about her allegations against these officers," Judge Lance said.

At the second trial Mr Dewar was also criticised by the court. Judge Philip Evans questioned Mr Dewar's motives in giving hearsay evidence at a similar point in the trial to where he gave hearsay evidence at the first trial.

Mr Dewar, as officer in charge of the case, also arranged for Messrs Schollum, Shipton and Rickards to give evidence for the prosecution at the third trial.

The three men said in a closed court session at that trial that they had consensual sex with Mrs Nicholas on different occasions but they denied ever using a baton to violate her.

The trial documents also show that Mrs Nicholas was cross-examined about whether she had complained to a police officer about being raped by a group of young men riding horses.

The documents also reveal allegations of indecent assault against other former or serving police officers. Their names remain suppressed.

Mr Dewar told the court that he had also investigated those complaints.