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Allegations
of Sexual Abuse |
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Lawyers for Rickards,
45, Brad Shipton, 47, and Bob Schollum, 53, gave their closing addresses to
the jury of seven women and five men, saying the complainant, Louise
Nicholas, had lied and fabricated events and the Crown case did not come
within a "bull's roar" of what was required. The jurors will retire
today to consider their verdicts. Rickards' lawyer, John
Haigh, QC, told the jury the case the Crown had presented was not enough to
convict anyone. Mrs Nicholas was
courting attention for a past of which she was ashamed, he said. "If these
allegations are indeed true then Mrs Nicholas must be a hauntingly tragic
figure." Between them the three
men face 20 charges of rape, indecent assault and sexual violation of Mrs
Nicholas. She alleges Shipton and
Rickards visited her Rotorua flat uninvited for sex she did not consent to
between September 1985 and January 1986. She alleges all three
men took turns at raping her and then indecently assaulted her with a police
baton at a police house in January 1986. Mr Haigh said Mrs
Nicholas had courted publicity in the case, waiving the right to name
suppression given to all complainants in sex cases. "She chose to have
her name here, to have her name splattered all over the media." Flaws in the Crown case
emerged if the jury asked why she allowed the abuse to continue at her flat
after the incident at the police house in Rutland St, Mr Haigh said.
"Rutland St is so gross that if it is true it would be an
abomination." He said all she offered
was, "No, guys, I don't want this." "She doesn't speak
out, she doesn't shout, she doesn't push, she doesn't run. Is that common sense?
Can you write that off as saying poor Mrs Nicholas had lost control?" Mr Haigh asked why she
had not complained to anyone at the time, when she had already made a
previous complaint against a police officer to her mother, who tried to do
something about it. "It was the
simplest thing in the world," he said. "What loss of control
prevents you from saying, 'Mum, this happened to me'?" Mr Haigh said Rutland
St was a fabrication and questioned why Mrs Nicholas continued wearing the
dress she said she had on that day years after the incident. "Would you not
think forever this dress would be contaminated? It was a memento, if you
like, of the most ghastly moment of her life." Evidence that Rickards
was never in uniform, as Mrs Nicholas had suggested, because he was a
plain-clothes detective at the time could not be ignored, he said. Evidence given by her
former flatmate who said she had sex with Shipton and Schollum and had seen
Mrs Nicholas having sex with them did not come "within a bull's
roar" of the Crown case. "Doesn't that
knock Mrs Nicholas out of the ring because she says [her flatmate] was never
there. If it wasn't so tragically serious you could describe it as
laughable." Rickards' achievements
in the police were to be admired and his work was impeccable, he said. Rickards conceded he
had consensual sex with Mrs Nicholas twice and while that might have been
morally reprehensible, it was not criminal. "She consented and
he reasonably believed she was consenting." Bill Nabney, for
Shipton, said his case was on two fronts: Shipton admitted having consensual
sex with Mrs Nicholas and Rutland St simply did not occur. He said the trial was
not about a married man having extra-marital sex with a young woman.
"It's a bunch of people having fun." The evidence of Mrs
Nicholas' flatmate showed that, he said. Paul Mabey, QC, for
Schollum, said the evidence in the case was just not good enough. Mrs
Nicholas had created a fantasy and told lies. Evidence was presented
which proved that Schollum was not driving a Triumph at the time, as Mrs
Nicholas claimed when she said she had been picked up by him and taken to
Rutland St. Her claims that she
made a solemn promise to her brother Peter that she would be civil to
Schollum at his wedding in February 1993 were untrue. In his evidence he said
he knew nothing of her allegations. Instead, Mr Mabey said,
she had flashed her leg to Schollum during wedding photos. The court was not for
judging morality, he said. He asked the jurors to
write "Are you sure?" on a white board before they started
deliberating. Justice Tony Randerson
will sum up the case for the jury this morning. |
