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Allegations of abuse
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Nicholas vs John Dewar |
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A police district commander says
there was no excuse for John Dewar not to investigate Louise Nicholas' complaints
of rape by police. Dewar, 55, has denied four counts
of attempting to obstruct or prevent the course of justice in relation to Mrs
Nicholas' complaints of sexual offending by police officers in the 1980s. In the High Court at Hamilton
yesterday, Superintendent Mark Lammas, the central police district commander,
said Dewar, who was in charge of the Rotorua CIB when Mrs Nicholas complained
to police in 1993, was obliged to investigate her claims Clint Rickards, Brad
Shipton and Bob Schollum raped and violated her with a police baton at a
house in Rotorua. Mr Lammas said he could not
imagine any situation where there was an allegation of rape by police
officers and it would not be subjected to at least a preliminary
investigation. "It would be at the top end
of the scale, very serious," he said. "It needs to be reported
through to the district commander so he or she can know about it and make a
determination over what action would follow." Dewar headed the investigation
into another claim by Mrs Nicholas that she was sexually assaulted at
Murupara by an officer when she was about 14. An arrest was made, and Mrs
Nicholas' allegations against Mr Rickards, Shipton and Schollum re-emerged
during the subsequent trial. Mr Lammas said Dewar was again obliged
to report the allegations to his district commander. That trial and a subsequent trial
were both aborted after Dewar gave inadmissable evidence, and the officer was
acquitted and given permanent name suppression at his third trial. Dewar's lawyer Paul Mabey QC asked
Mr Lammas whether Dewar would have been able to use his discretion in
deciding whether to take Mrs Nicholas' allegations further. "No, in my view there was no
room for discretion. Those matters needed to be reported to the district commander,"
Mr Lammas said. Earlier in the trial, police
inspector Alastair Williams spoke of a conversation he had with Dewar around
1998, where Dewar told him of an incident where he was taken to a woman's
house in Rotorua, by either Mr Rickards or Shipton. "He said that he was taken to
an address, he didn't know what was going to happen until he got there and
that he was told to wait in the shadows while the other person knocked on the
door and spoke to the occupant." When the woman came to the door,
the other man told her he had a "surprise" for her, and got Dewar
to step out of the shadows. Dewar went inside and had sex with
the woman. Mr Williams said he did not know
if the other man joined in or not. Mr Mabey questioned whether Mr
Williams' recollection of Dewar being with either Mr Rickards or Shipton had
been influenced by media coverage. Sergeant Christopher McLeod told
the court of his time stationed in Rotorua, and said Dewar socialised with Mr
Rickards and Schollum, and was particularly close to Shipton. "Brad
often made a point of being very close to people who were in positions of
power," he said. |
