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Allegations
of Sexual Abuse |
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Two hours into
deliberations the jury in the historic police rape case, came out of the jury
room to ask whether police officers owned their own uniforms. The jury of seven women
and five men retired at 1pm today to decide verdicts on Assistant Police
Commissioner Clint Rickards, 45, and former policemen Brad Shipton, 47, and
Bob Schollum, 53. The men face twenty
charges of rape, indecent assault and sexual violation against Louise
Nicholas. Judge Tony Randerson
answered the jurors by directing them to sections of the 300 page transcript
of evidence from the three week trial. Mrs Nicholas alleges
Rickards and Shipton visited her at her Corlett Street flat in Rotorua,
between six to 12 times in the mid 1980s for sexual intercourse and oral sex
without her consent. She had testified in
her evidence they sometimes wore their police uniforms and other times were
dressed in suits. Rickards and Shipton
told the court they had consensual sex with Mrs Nicholas but they were CIB
officers and were never dressed in police uniform. Rickards gave evidence
in his own defence last week and said he never wore police uniform during the
time he was alleged to have raped Mrs Nicholas. Rickards and Shipton
were both uniformed police in the early 1980s. Judge Randerson read
out evidence to the jurors from retired Rotorua Sergeant Ray Sutton who said CIB
officers were still expected to have a police uniform but not all CIB
officers did. Rickards defence lawyer
John Haigh QC said yesterday Mrs Nicholas was lying when she said she saw
Rickards in police uniform and her evidence had gaps "a mile wide".
Earlier in the day
Judge Randerson spent three hours summing up the trial, he told the jury they
had a difficult task ahead and reminded them there were effectively three
trials in one. He said they had to
decide if Mrs Nicholas was a credible and reliable witness or whether she
genuinely believed she was truthful but may have been mistaken. |
