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Allegations
of Sexual Abuse |
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Seventeen years ago a
woman gave an off-duty policeman a ride home after a night at the Awanui
Hotel in Kaitaia. People remember her
commenting: "If you can't be safe with a policeman, who can you be safe
with?" Yesterday the former
officer, Timothy Nicholas Ogle, a 45-year-old investigator now living in
Queensland, was committed for trial on eight charges relating to that March
1988 night -- including four counts of rape, two of sexual violation by
unlawful sexual connection, one of attempted sexual violation and one of
assault. The woman's statement,
presented to the court yesterday, says they stopped at the local police
station to pick up his running gear and, while there, he handcuffed her, took
her inside and raped her. The married father of
three had smelled of alcohol and vomit as he kissed her with an open mouth,
and she became frightened as she realised this was no joke. She enjoyed it, he told
her afterward. And he could get her "in lots of ways" if she told
on him, her statement says. He thought he had done
all right considering all the grog he had that night, she remembers him
saying, before she drove him home. Ogle denies all charges
but was committed yesterday for trial after conceding there was a case to
answer at a depositions hearing in Auckland District Court. He remains on bail and
is free to return to Australia. The complainant has automatic name
suppression. Judge Fred McElrea
refused an application by Ogle for his continued interim name suppression as
it would place his former police colleagues under suspicion. In a written statement,
the complainant said she called a policeman friend the day after the attack
to ask how to make a rape complaint -- he told her to tell a policeman. What if the rapist is a
policeman, she had asked. "And he said something like, `Oh dear or
Christ'." He thought he should go
to detectives in another town, but later called her back to say regulations
required him to report the matter to his commanding officer, Sergeant Colin
Yates. Mr Yates and Ogle had
both been at the hotel before the alleged rape. The sergeant came to
her that evening and she told him about trying to leave hair and fingerprints
at the scene, and about a shirt she had used to clean herself up that had
been returned to a locker. He did not take notes
and no formal statement was taken till June, her statement said. The woman's boyfriend
at the time, Ross Atkinson, who had worked at the hotel bar that night, said
he went to her place that night about 3.30am. "That was a great
mate you sent me home with," she said, and she cried as he tried to find
out what she meant. He asked if she had been raped and they spent a couple of
hours discussing what to do about it. He suggested she talk
to Mr Yates, whom he knew -- it was the sergeant who had asked Mr Atkinson if
she would be able to give Ogle a ride. The police officer who
investigated the woman's rape complaint in June 1988, Brian McFadden, now a
consultant in Auckland, said under cross-examination that he had dealt with
the crown solicitor in Whangarei, the police legal section and the police
superintendent about the matter. When all inquiries had
been made and advice received, no charges were laid. Though Mr McFadden
could not remember having the conversation, there was a record in his
notebook that the woman's lawyer had said they were satisfied with the
thoroughness of the investigation, whatever the outcome, and would not make a
public fuss. The complainant took a
civil case in 1994, Mr McFadden said. Detective Inspector
John Franklin, of Nelson, reinvestigated the case over six months last year
before Ogle was charged. He said Ogle's reaction
to being formally charged was: "I am totally innocent." --------------- CAPTION: Trial ahead: Former
Northland police officer Timothy Ogle leaves Auckland District Court
yesterday during his deposition hearing on rape charges. Picture: FOTOPRESS |
