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Allegations
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Auckland: Louise Nicholas’
husband broke down in tears in court yesterday when he was asked about the
dress his wife was wearing when she was allegedly raped and sexually abused
with a baton by three policemen. Ross Nicholas, a
driver, was Mrs Nicholas’ boyfriend from 1985. They married in 1998 and have
three teenage daughters. He was one of three
family members of Mrs Nicholas who gave evidence in the High Court at
Auckland yesterday. On trial are Assistant
Police Commissioner Clint Rickards, and former policemen Bradley Keith
Shipton and Robert Francis Schollum. They have denied a total of 20 charges
of rape and sexual abuse. Mr Nicholas said he had
taken Mrs Nicholas on a holiday to Whangamata in 1985 and bought her an
ankle-length white muslin dress. He began to cry when he described the dress
and how much his wife had liked it. Two days ago, Mrs
Nicholas told the court she was wearing the dress when the three accused
allegedly forced her to have group sex and indecently assaulted her with a
baton at a police rental house in Rotorua in January 1986, when she was 18. She said she was led
into a bedroom where Schollum and Shipton were waiting for her, and she said
she told them she did not want to do anything with them. I was sitting on the
bed; sitting on the bottom of my dress because of the length. They were
trying to remove it and I was saying I didn’t want to do this. They were having a bit
of a hard time removing the dress eventually the dress came off, Mrs Nicholas
said. Mrs Nicholas said she
did not tell anyone about the alleged baton incident or the occasions when
she said Shipton and Rickards visited her house uninvited for sexual
intercourse and oral sex between September 1985 and December 1986, because
no-one would believe me. Mr Nicholas said he
remembered Shipton and Rickards turning up at his then girlfriend’s flat when
he was there alone, sick. There was a knock at
the door and I could see blue shirts through the frosted glass door. Two policemen were
standing on the step. He said he recognised
them from social occasions. They were quite
surprised to see I was there I just remember the way they looked at me. In cross examination,
Rickards’ defence lawyer, John Haigh QC, handed Mr Nicholas a police
statement made by Mrs Nicholas in 1993. Mr Nicholas was present
when the statement was taken and the officer recorded him as saying he
remembered when Shipton and Schollum arrived unexpectedly at the flat. Mr Nicholas said the
statement must have been wrong, because he remembers Rickards and Shipton. For all I know, I
could’ve got it messed up then, Mr Nicholas said. During re-examination,
Crown prosecutor Mark Zarifeh confirmed the document was unofficial and Mr
Nicholas had never signed it. Mrs Nicholas’
mother-in-law, Phyllis Nicholas, gave evidence saying she remembered going to
Mrs Nicholas’ flat on three occasions and seeing a police car parked out
front. She said she saw two
men exit the house and hop into the police car. She said Mrs Nicholas
had appeared to be off-colour when they left. Phyllis Nicholas suggested they
go to the doctor, but Mrs Nicholas declined. The jury also heard
from Mrs Nicholas’ older brother, Peter Crawford, who described friendships
he had with the police officers in Rotorua. He said Schollum was a good friend
of the family at the time. Retired Rotorua
inspector Ray Sutton told the court Mrs Nicholas’ father, Jim Crawford,
contacted him in January 1993 to say his daughter had been sexually abused by
a police officer in Murupara in the early 1980s, and later in Rotorua by the
three accused. Mr Sutton said he
visited the Crawfords’ house the same day and Mrs Nicholas told him about
previous allegations, of rape by a separate police officer in Murupara, as
well as the baton incident with the accused. He said he told them
the procedure for making a formal complaint, and a few days later Mrs
Nicholas was referred to the sexual abuse team. The Crown read out
evidence from four other witnesses, regarding details of the layout and
occupants of the police rental house. |
