|
|
Allegations
of Sexual Abuse |
|
|
|
|
Louise Nicholas has constructed
a fantasy of being raped by police officers as a teenager and though she may
believe it, a jury cannot, defence lawyers say. "She must be the
unluckiest woman alive," Assistant Commissioner Clint Rickards' lawyer
John Haigh, QC, said of her claims of abuse by seven police officers in the
1980s. "If it is true,
Mrs Nicholas is indeed a tragically haunting figure. If it is not true,
either she is deluded or she is a consummate liar." A jury in the High
Court at Auckland is expected to begin deliberations today on whether
Rickards, 45, and former policemen Bradley Shipton, 53, and Robert Schollum,
47, forced Mrs Nicholas to have group sex over several months in Rotorua in
1985 and 1986. Justice Tony Randerson
will sum up this morning. In closing arguments,
the accused men's lawyers urged the jury, considering 20 sex charges, to
conclude that Mrs Nicholas must be lying. There were too many
inconsistencies, an inexplicable lack of resistance and the allegation of a
sexual assault with a police baton in January 1986 was "so gross"
that it was far-fetched, Mr Haigh said. Schollum's lawyer Paul
Mabey, QC, said the allegations were a fantasy. Elements of the fantasy could
be found in the defendants' truthful accounts of events. All men admitted having
consensual sex with Mrs Nicholas, including group encounters. That account
was backed up by Mrs Nicholas' former flatmate. But Mrs Nicholas, for
example, had given a detailed description of the layout of the Rutland St
house, where she claimed to have been only once, when brutalised with the
baton. "You wouldn't
remember it, you'd be so damn scared," Mr Mabey said. She had even known, on
seeing a blueprint, that the bathroom had since been remodelled. The defence said
that she knew the house so well because she often visited there, for sex with
Schollum – as he had always maintained. Likewise, she said she
was taken to the house by Schollum in a tan Triumph. He had taken her on a
holiday in such a car when he and her family lived in Murupara, but it had
been sold in 1984. The prosecution's contention was that he had borrowed
another tan Triumph in Rotorua, but its policeman owner had not transferred
there till six months after the alleged incident. Similarly, Mrs Nicholas
testified she could not remember telling police in 1994 that she once had
drunken sex with Schollum at his Kusabs Rd house. Schollum remembered it, but
it had been cut from her version of events because it did not fit – he did
not buy the house tilltill after Rutland St so it would be admitting having
sex with her rapist. Shipton's lawyer, Bill
Nabney, said the flatmate's few clear recollections of sex matched what
Shipton had told police investigators during an inquiry in the 1990s. Mrs Nicholas' claim
that the two men wore police uniforms was incorrect as they had been
plain-clothed detectives. It was also
"inconceivable" that the only person she said she had complained to
was Trevor Clayton, a policeman alleged to have previously raped her in Murupara.
Mr Haigh said Rickards
was unfairly criticised by the prosecution for being too consistent with his
denials. "But what else can
you expect him to do?" he said. "If you accept
Louise Nicholas' evidence completely, then of course you convict him. If you
believe everything Mr Rickards said on oath, you would acquit him. If you are
left in between . . . then there's reasonable doubt." |
