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Allegations
of Sexual Abuse |
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A jury of seven women
and five men retired at 1.25pm today to decide if a high-ranking policeman
and two former policemen are rapists. Assistant police
commissioner Clint Rickards, and former police officers Brad Shipton and Bob
Schollum are being tried in the High Court at Auckland on 20 historic rape
and sexual abuse charges against Rotorua woman Louise Nicholas. She told the trial all
three men raped her and indecently assaulted her in 1985 and 1986 when she
was an 18-year-old in Rotorua. They deny the charges. Summing up this morning
Justice Tony Randerson told the jury the three men were entitled to benefit
from any element of doubt in the case with an acquittal. He told the jurors they
faced a daunting task but were not to be influenced by moral issues after the
three men said in court they had had group sex with Mrs Nicholas but that it
was consensual. Lawyers for Rickards,
suspended from the police on full pay, Shipton and Schollum, said that Mrs
Nicholas made up the rape allegations. They said she liked sex
with policemen. Mrs Nicholas said in
evidence she had lost control and could not say "no" to the three
men who used their influence as police officers to intimidate her. She said
she was very scared of them. |
