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Allegations
of Sexual Abuse |
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Day 1 ·
Assistant Police Commissioner Clinton Rickards and former
policemen Bradley Shipton and Robert Schollum plead not guilty to 20 sex
charges. Rickards wears his police uniform, which will bring a reprimand from
national headquarters. ·
Justice Tony Randerson tells prospective jurors the trial
is about the sexual abuse of a woman in her late teens. Anyone with a
connection to any police officer should excuse themselves. Five do. Lawyers
veto another 21. Seven women and five men are selected. ·
There are 18 journalists -- "the battalion",
Justice Randerson remarks. Near-blanket suppression orders are replaced with
ones suppressing certain evidence. Day 2 ·
In opening, the prosecution and defence say her credibility
will be a central issue. Prosecutor Mark Zarifeh says it all happened 20
years ago, there will inevitably be conflicts between memories.
Inconsistencies that need not trouble the jury? "I suggest
otherwise," rumbles Rickards' lawyer, John Haigh, QC. ·
For almost two hours, Mrs Nicholas describes sexual abuse.
Shipton and Rickards would visit her Rotorua flat, uninvited, on days she was
home alone, in their uniforms. One would have intercourse, the other would
receive oral sex; they would change positions. "My only form of defence
was to say, `Just don't do this, guys. I don't want to do it'." ·
Schollum offered her a lift home in a tan Triumph one
January afternoon in 1986 but took her to a house in Rutland St instead. Her
words begin to cascade as she describes the defendants forcing her to have
group sex while a fourth man watched. Shipton brought out a police baton. She
begins to sob after detailing the violation. Day 3 ·
The public gallery fills up. A growing number of the
defendants' family members and supporters come. ·
Mrs Nicholas laid a complaint against a former Murupara
policeman in 1993. He was acquitted in 1994 after two mistrials. Her
allegations against the three defendants were raised at court hearings and led
to an investigation in 1995. ·
Cross-examination brings Mrs Nicholas' time in the stand
to five hours and 40 minutes. She is accused of lying, of recovering memories
after counselling, of enjoying media attention and of doing little to stop
the abuse. ·
* She is asked to explain differences in more than 19
statements made over the years to investigators, health workers and in court.
One says she got drunk at a party and had sex with Schollum. "If it is
in the statement, I must have said it, but I don't remember it," she
says. She is also asked why her flatmate would say Mrs Nicholas was friendly
with the accused and had consensual sex with them. ·
Mrs Nicholas says she had been abused from 13. "That
was the conditioning of my life." Day 4 ·
Older brother Peter Crawford remembers Schollum driving
Trevor Clayton's Triumph in Rotorua. Defence lawyer Paul Mabey says Mr
Clayton transferred from Wairarapa to Putaruru in 1986, then Hamilton, and
did not arrive in Rotorua till June that year, six months after alleged
events at Rutland St. ·
Mother-in-law Phyllis Nicholas remembers seeing police
cars twice at Louise's Corlett St flat but did not ask about it. ·
Husband Ross cries as he recalls buying his wife the white
dress worn during the alleged Rutland St rapes. It was a special gift
purchased at the end of 1985 and she had had it for several years. ·
He recalls a day when he was at Louise's flat alone.
Rickards and Shipton dropped by. The defence counter with a 1995
investigator's report recording a comment from Mr Nicholas that Shipton and
Schollum had visited. ·
Retired policeman Ray Sutton says he informally offered
advice to Mrs Nicholas in January 1993. She had told him about abuse in
Murupara, policemen visiting her Rotorua flat for sex and about a baton being
used on her. The issue of consent was not discussed beyond what it meant to
be under-aged. ·
Two jurors appear to be sleeping. Day 5 ·
Statements from Mrs Nicholas' former flatmate are read by
the registrar. Her memory is hazy but Shipton and Schollum did visit, and she
and Louise would have had sex with them. A 1995 statement said sex was
consensual and the atmosphere friendly. A 2004 statement said she now
realised that those loveless visits were only about sex. ·
The defendants' 1995 police interviews are read out. All
denied the allegations and recounted episodes of consensual sex with Mrs
Nicholas: Rickards twice, Schollum and Shipton several times. All were
involved in threesomes. "Louise was more accommodating than most,"
Shipton said. ·
A juror wears a Promise Keepers vest each day. Another
wears fluffy yellow socks every day. Two reporters nod off, one with his hand
resting on his pen. Day 6 and 7 ·
The evidence of five witnesses is suppressed. ·
Mr Haigh opens Rickards' defence by saying these points
may destroy the prosecution: the discrepancy between Mrs Nicholas and her
flatmate; the improbability that Mrs Nicholas would do nothing to prevent the
alleged rapes; Rickards was a plain-clothes trainee detective; Mrs Nicholas
kept wearing the white dress. Day 8 ·
Rickards is adamant Mrs Nicholas is lying. He had sex with
her twice. She had initiated sex, and there was giggling and laughing as he and
Shipton once watched each other have sex with her. He wore his uniform on the
first day of the trial because he is proud to be a police officer. Prosecutor
Brent Stanaway suggests the men have a script. "There's no conflict when
you tell the truth," Rickards says. Caption:
Accuser
and accused: Louise Nicholas and the accused, Clint Rickards, Robert Schollum
and Bradley Shipton. They all deny raping Mrs Nicholas in Rotorua, when they
were all policemen. |
