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Allegations
of Sexual Abuse |
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The jury in the
historical rape charge trial has asked the judge whether it has to believe
all of a witness's evidence. Jurors have now been
deliberating for more than 25 hours on whether Assistant Police Commissioner
Clint Rickards and former colleagues Brad Shipton, and Bob Schollum raped and
sexually assaulted Rotorua woman Louise Nicholas in the mid 1980s.. The jury has returned
to court to ask whether it is obliged to accept or reject all of a witness'
evidence and whether it can find some parts credible and not others. Justice Randerson says
the jury can decide which parts of a witness' testimony it believes but he
says if jurors reject some of what a person says, they must ask themselves
whether that causes them to have reasonable doubt about the rest of that
evidence. As the wait continues,
emotions are beginning to boil over. The son of Assistant Police Commissioner
Clint Rickards, made his feelings known to a cameraman this morning as the
jury deliberates for a third day. As a newspaper
photographer took pictures of the officer arriving at court, the accused
man's son veered off course and nudged the cameraman with his shoulder. Our reporter at the
court says the strain on the families who have stood devotedly by the three
accused men is immense. |
