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Allegations
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Police are defending
their decision to charge Clint Rickards. Deputy police
commissioner Lyn Provost says it was the force's job to investigate the case. Police chiefs will talk
to Rickards about his future employment following a high flying career that
saw him rise rapidly through the ranks. Rickards wanted to be
New Zealand's first Maori police commissioner but it was a job he couldn't
have foreseen as a teenager in Rotorua in the seventies. At 14 his
first experience with police was being delivered home by them after a spate
of petty crime. Rugby and judo
dominated his teenage years before he joined the force in Rotorua at the age
of 18. He made the rank of detective in just four years. His role included
investigating rape cases and in one interview about an Invercargill rape in
the early 1990s he said: "I think any rape of any woman is
horrific". He then worked on gang
problems in Invercargill and later in the Hawke's Bay. Rickards went on to
became superintendent district commander in Hawke's Bay in 1997 and then got
Waikato's top policing job - becoming the nation's youngest police chief and
a campaigner for more Maori police officers. But his biggest career
moment came in 2001 when he was appointed assistant police commissioner. At
the time, Commissioner Rob Robinson said Rickards had beaten strong
candidates for the job. In 2004 he became the
head of the Auckland City police district, but just a month later Louise
Nicholas went public with her allegations and his career started crumbling. |
