Allegations of Sexual Abuse
	The Police Rape Inquiry
	News Reports
	Dominion Post June 17 2004 Hearing into police misconduct postponed again 17 June 2004 Public hearings for the commission of inquiry into police misconduct have been postponed again, this time until August. Commissioners Justice Bruce Robertson and Dame Margaret Bazley yesterday met lawyers for all parties involved in closed chambers to review progress in preparing evidence for the hearings. They were originally scheduled to begin this month. However, at the last hearing on May 24, when police gave evidence on how rules and guidelines for police were disseminated, Mr Robertson said delays in gathering evidence meant those alleging misconduct would not appear before the commission until at least July. The process had been delayed until then mainly because of secrecy provisions in the Police Complaints Authority Act that prevented a lot of evidence from being accessed. A spokesman said that it was also taking longer than expected to record the stories of those alleging misconduct. "The two things that struck the commissioners most was the sensitivity of the stories being told and then the complexity and the need for justice to be served," he said. The process of sifting through Police Complaints Authority files by the commission's lawyers in relation to those claims was also proving to be a complex task. The commission was established after Rotorua woman Louise Nicholas alleged in January that she was pack-raped and violated with a police baton by three police officers in 1986. The November deadline imposed by the Government for the commission to report back is still expected to be met.