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Allegations
of Sexual Abuse |
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Louise Nicholas has been
here before. Over and again, she has told her story of rape and degradation,
listed dates and addresses and names, tried to explain why she stayed silent
for so long. Through three trials,
19 police statements, counselling sessions, media interviews, through years
of retelling it all, she has talked and talked. Now, Louise Nicholas
looks weary, sitting in the witness box in one corner of vast Courtroom 12,
only visible from the collarbones up. She keeps her head down, staring at the
floor, occasionally raising her eyes to frown at the microphone before her. She does not look at
the three accused men, bulky and bulging out of dark suits at the back of the
court. She does not look at
the defence barristers as they suggest she is a liar, just occasionally
flicks her eyes towards the bar tables as she answers the questions. There's no outrage in
Mrs Nicholas's voice as she denies lying, denies she is mistaken or has
recovered these memories with the help of counsellors, relates how her claims
against another policeman led to him facing two aborted trials, then a third
trial that ended in his acquittal. Over and over she
denies ever consenting to sex with the men, explains how nobody would believe
her, how no one could help. "No, there was
never any consensual sex with these men," she says a dozen times, eyes
down, intonation flat. "I had no control ... I never consented. I just
couldn't stop them." Her jaw is set, muscles clenching in her cheeks. She cried on Tuesday,
describing the rapes, but now Mrs Nicholas is not going to break, not going
to react to the tone of incredulity in which John Haigh, QC, counsel for
Clint Rickards, demands to know why she did not complain or run away. Mr Haigh, tall and craggy,
swinging his spectacles in his right hand, is trying to re-create the drama
of the moment in January 1986, as Mrs Nicholas arrived at a Rotorua police
house in Rutland St, in a car driven by Bob Schollum. The other men were
waiting to have sex with her, she says. Mr Haigh wants to know, if she is
telling the truth, why she entered the house to be raped again? "They're standing
up there on the deck in full view of you, these two rapists who had been
abusing you over a period of months ... these men had been raping you in the
most gross manner," Mr Haigh says as Mrs Nicholas nods and answers
"Yes ... yes." "So why," Mr
Haigh asks, "didn't you tell Mr Schollum: 'Go to hell, I'm not going in
there, I know what those guys are like, I'm walking home?"' The jury members are
looking at their computer screens, where a photo of the house gleams
cheerfully - red brick, bright blue sky, green lawn, grey stairs stretching
up to the deck. They squint across at her, waiting. There is no drama in
Mrs Nicholas's tone. "I didn't want what I knew was going to happen but
I didn't run, I didn't, I admit it. I didn't go anywhere but inside that
house ... I could do nothing." On the
cross-examination goes, as the three defendants sit at the back, Schollum
leaning back in his chair, Rickards hunched forwards, Shipton writing notes
in an exercise book. Mrs Nicholas' only
flash of anger comes late in the day, in response to questions about her
brother's 1993 wedding from Schollum's counsel, Paul Mabey, QC. Schollum's
evidence, Mabey says, will be that Nicholas lifted her skirt and showed him
her suspenders. If the rape claim was
true, "you wouldn't have wanted to do anything sexual with him, flirt
with him?" "Oh for Pete's
sakes," she snaps, looking directly at Mr Mabey for the first time.
"No I definitely would not, thank you." She holds the stare for
a second, shakes her head, then drops her gaze back to the floor. |
