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
The men have said the sex was consensual. They denied rape.
The first meeting of the commission of inquiry is today at the
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.