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Allegations
of Sexual Abuse |
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Queen's Counsel John
Haig has delivered an impassioned speech to the Rotorua District Court,
saying the case against his client Assistant Police Commissioner Clint
Rickards is built on straw. Rickards and former
police officers Brad Shipton and Bob Schollum have been committed to stand
trial on 20 charges that they raped and indecently assaulted Louise Nicholas
when she was an 18-year-old bank worker. Before Judge Chris
McGuire made his ruling, Mr Haig told the court the Crown's case is based on
an obsessive and flawed police investigation, which has accumulated stale and
unreliable evidence. He says he does not
concede there is a case to answer against Rickards, who has been stood down
from his job since the allegations resurfaced early last year. Louise Nicholas claims
the men raped and indecently assaulted her at two Rotorua houses in the mid
1980s. The accused deny the
charges but say they had consensual group sex with Mrs Nicholas. |
