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Home / police allegations / Rickards,
Shipton, Schollum vs Jane Doe Page 1 - 2007 Trial of
Rickards, Shipton, Schollum Week 1 |
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The woman at the centre of
historic sex abuse claims against assistant police commissioner Clint
Rickards and two former policemen spent the day in the witness box in the
High Court in During the cross-examination
yesterday afternoon the woman became increasingly upset during questioning of
her recollection of events and broke down outside the court several times
during recess. The court was adjourned early for
the day. Rickards and former policemen Brad
Shipton and Bob Schollum have denied kidnapping and indecently assaulting the
then 16-year-old girl between November 1983 and August 1984 in Rotorua. This morning the woman described
how she lay handcuffed to a bed "begging and pleading" as the three
accused, plus two other men, laughed while she was sexually assaulted with a
bottle. The woman told the court how
Shipton straddled her and as she was indecently assaulted with the bottle, he
told her this is what she wanted. "It was like a joke for
them." The woman said she was picked up
by two men and carried kicking and screaming to a bedroom. She had tried to stop them and the
men commented "for such a little thing I was quite a fighter". "I called them a pack of
bastards and told them they would pay for what they had done." After the men left the room,
Schollum remained, making sure she was okay but told her not to tell anyone,
the woman said. Schollum said "I would suffer
more for it and so would my family", she told the court. The woman told the court she had
"no doubt in my mind whatsoever" Rickards, Shipton and Schollum
were the men involved in the assault. During her testimony Shipton
looked frequently at the jury and took notes, while Schollum took notes
throughout. Rickards sat expressionless,
looking at the woman with his hands clasped. Rickards defence lawyer John
Haigh QC told the woman she had got "absolutely the wrong man" and
that the incident never happened. Mr Haigh asked the woman how
despite Mr Rickards serving as a uniformed officer and being on crutches and
in a plaster cast for much of the time during which the alleged incident
occurred, she could not recall seeing him incapacitated and only claimed to
have seen him in plain clothes. Mr Haigh said there were
"serious issues of identification" by the woman. The woman, who has name suppression,
said she was certain the person she had seen on several occasions leading up
to the assault was Rickards. Mr Haigh questioned why the woman
had said in her initial police statement that she had had a sexual
relationship with Rickards over a six-month period, a statement which she
later admitted was not true. The woman said the meaning of her
statement had been misinterpreted by police and she had not signed the
initial statement. The woman said it had been very
hard trying to recall how the events had occurred. Mr Haigh told the woman she was
"embellishing, constructing as she went along". The woman denied this and said she
was trying to make sure her evidence was going to be accurate. Mr Haigh said her inability to
identify Rickards from a photo from the time, combined with her other
conflicting evidence, showed she could not be believed. Shipton's lawyer Bill Nabney told
the woman her recollection of Shipton being clean shaven was wrong, with
photos showing he had a moustache at the time. Cross-examination of the woman is
expected to continue today. |
