Dominion Post
March 21, 2002

File missing as police rape inquiry begins
by Kelly Andrew

Crucial evidence could be missing when the commission of inquiry into police rape allegations meets for the first time today.

The police investigation file into Rotorua woman Louise Nicholas' allegations she was raped by police officers has been lost since 1997, according to a police document obtained by the Sunday current affairs television programme.

The document, dated June 1997, says extensive inquiries failed to find the original investigation file.

Police spokesman Jon Neilson told The Dominion Post last night that he could not comment on the Sunday programme, but did not dispute its claims of a missing file.

The commission of inquiry has been launched to investigate alleged sexual assaults by police and whether these were properly investigated.

It followed Mrs Nicholas' allegations she was pack-raped in 1986 when she was aged 18 by two former officers, Bob Schollum and Brad Shipton, and Auckland police commander Assistant Commissioner Clint Rickards, who has been stood down from duty.

The men have said the sex was consensual. They denied rape.

The first meeting of the commission of inquiry is today at the Wellington Town hall, and will be open to the public. It will also inquire into police standards and codes in relation to police personal behaviour, and sexual conduct.

High Court judge Justice Bruce Robertson and former public servant Dame Margaret Bazley will outline how the inquiry will run, and the estimated 15 lawyers who are predicted to attend can ask questions. The hearings are expected to start in May and go through to July. Mr Robertson and Dame Margaret will report back to the Cabinet in November.

However, the Sunday programme's revelation raises further questions about police treatment of Mrs Nicholas' case. In 1993, former Detective Inspector John Dewar, then Rotorua CIB chief, was assigned to investigate Mrs Nicholas' complaint against the three policemen.

Mr Dewar was criticised after the trials of a fourth policeman accused of raping Mrs Nicholas when she was aged 14. The first two trials were aborted because Mr Dewar gave hearsay evidence at critical points of the Crown case. The policeman was acquitted after the third trial.

In 1995, Judge Michael Lance criticised Mr Dewar for not recording Mrs Nicholas' pack-rape allegations, and for advising her not to make a statement detailing them.

This year another woman has sworn a detailed affidavit saying she was involved in consensual group sex with Mr Dewar and Mr Shipton.

A diary belonging to Mr Dewar, which he said was the only record of a formal interview with Mr Shipton regarding Mrs Nicholas' allegations, has also disappeared.

On the Sunday programme, Margaret Craig, a Rotorua sexual assault counsellor, said her records relating to Mrs Nicholas had disappeared. Either she had accidentally culled them, or they had gone missing from her office.