NZ Herald
October 30 2004
Woman told to shut up about sexual violation
by Phil Taylor
Donna Johnson
A
Donna Johnson said she complained to
police soon after the incident in 1995 but told the Weekend Herald she was
warned off by an officer she now believes to be a friend of the offender.
"He told me to get my facts
straight - basically, who was going to believe me?"
She changed her address, but the man
she alleges violated her turned up at her home.
When she asked how he found her,
"he said, 'I got it through the power board - that's why I'm a
detective'."
"He said he'd heard I had been
'talking some shit' about him and that he wasn't happy and basically to shut my
mouth."
The man had contacted her
periodically over the years, she believes to ensure she kept silent. The most
recent was a chance meeting two months ago. It worked.
Ms Johnson felt she was not believed
and that the man would find out if she went to police again.
"From the day I left that
police station having tried to make a complaint, [people] don't know what it's
been like ... I feared for myself and for my kids, so I made the decision to
shut up.
"When the Louise Nicholas stuff
came up [on the news], I thought, 'Here's my chance to say how I believe it was
and to explain the steps I tried to take to get help nine years ago'."
Ms Nicholas, who lives near Rotorua,
alleges rape, intimidation and a cover-up involving several officers.
In March, Ms Johnson contacted the
Commission of Inquiry set up to investigate Ms Nicholas' allegations. She has
been interviewed by a detective from the police team investigating the claims
and those of Northland woman Judith Garrett, who says she was raped by a
policeman in the Kaitaia police station in 1988.
Ms Johnson, 36, said that on the
night of the incident, the policeman had phoned after midnight and said he was
nearby after a job and would be there in five minutes for coffee.
Despite trying to dissuade him by
telling him she was recovering from an operation, he arrived and "made it
clear he wasn't here for coffee", said Ms Johnson, who was a 27-year-old
solo mother at the time.
"There was someone else in the
car and he asked if he could come in, too." Ms Johnson said that had she given
any encouraging signal, both men would have had sex with her.
She explained that she was not long
out of hospital for a gynaecological procedure, but he persisted. "I
persisted in saying 'no'. I was then asked to perform indecent
whatever-you-call-it on him. It was totally nothing I wanted to have a bar
of."
Despite her protestations, a sexual
violation occurred, she said.
Police spokesman Jon Neilson
confirmed that police on the Nicholas inquiry were investigating.