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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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by Patrick Gower
Former All Black prop Steve
McDowell leaves court yesterday after giving evidence for Clint Rickards. A former All Black star has been
called in by suspended police Assistant Commissioner Clint Rickards to back his
defence that he was incapacitated by a sore knee for some of the time during
which he is accused of violating a 16-year-old girl. Steve McDowell yesterday told the
High Court at Auckland he could remember his friend Rickards needing crutches
or support to get around early in 1984, which is during the period the
sex-case complainant says the incident took place. Rickards had earlier given
evidence in his own defence, saying he had a full-length plaster cast from
the top of his right thigh to the bottom of his ankle and then was on
crutches from late 1983 to mid-January 1984 and was limping after that. Mr McDowell, who played 46 tests
for New Zealand, said he and Rickards had been friends since they were 5 and
in a Rotorua judo club. He told the jury he visited
Rickards up to five times a week during his recovery from knee reconstruction
surgery in October 1983. He said Rickards "was a
pretty big fella in those days" and needed support to get around until
into the new year. He could remember Rickards wearing
a hinged brace after the plaster cast was removed in late December 1983. It was some time before Rickards
could walk freely. Rickards, 46, Brad Shipton, 49,
and Bob Schollum, 54, deny charges of kidnapping the woman and indecently assaulting
her with a bottle in Rotorua sometime between November 1983 and August 1984
when she was 16 - although her evidence was that it was more likely to have
happened in the summer months. The woman said she was handcuffed
to a bed with Shipton straddling her and Rickards and Schollum standing on
either side while an indecency was performed with a whisky bottle from which
they had been drinking. In her evidence earlier in the
trial she said she did not remember Rickards with a cast or limping. The woman also said Shipton, with
whom she had been having a consensual sexual relationship, was clean-shaven. Yesterday his lawyer showed the
jury a photograph taken close to the time and showing Shipton with a
moustache. Rickards began his evidence by
telling the jury he was the assistant commissioner of police responsible for
Auckland and in charge of more than 2500 staff. He then acknowledged that he was
suspended from duty. He told his lawyer, John Haigh,
QC, he had never met the woman making the allegations. In cross-examination, prosecutor
Brent Stanaway accused Rickards of being an accomplished liar after spending
two years as an undercover officer and a "very practised witness"
after up to 100 court appearances to prosecute others. Mr Stanaway: "Day in day out,
you had to live a lie, didn't you?" Rickards: "Yes, I did" Mr Stanaway: "You had to be a
very practised liar, didn't you?" Rickards: "To the criminal
fraternity, yes." Mr Stanaway asked if Rickards
accepted the possibility the incident did happen, but the woman was mistaken
about his involvement. Mr Stanaway: "If the event
occurred, your case is that you weren't there?" Rickards: "That's
correct." Stanaway: "You agree that it
was a vile event? Rickards: "If true,
yes." Mr Stanaway also said Rickards had
been adding elaborations and changing his story since earlier statements. This included Rickards' evidence
yesterday that he did not frequent a cafe where the woman said she saw him,
because his mother was a cook at the hospital so he got good food from her,
and because he was tired of takeaways after eating them a lot while spending
time undercover. Orthopaedic surgeon Dr Barry
Tietjens also appeared for Rickards, saying he signed medical records
declaring Rickards fit for selective work on December 21, 1983, but not for
full duties until February 1984. He could not recall the hinged
brace, but said the surgery he did on Rickards required taking "the knee
apart". Mr McDowell, who was a World
Cup-winning prop for the All Blacks in 1987, said he had seen a lot of knee
injuries, and recalled Rickards' cruciate ligament damage as particularly
severe. "Most guys don't come back
from that, particularly in those days." Mr McDowell, now a residential property
developer, was chosen to represent New Zealand in judo at the 1980 Moscow
Olympics, but did not go because of New Zealand's boycott over the Soviet
Union's invasion of Afghanistan. Rickards was a judo competitor at
the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh. Shipton's wife, Sharon, gave
evidence in his defence, telling the court her husband had a moustache for
more than 10 years from late 1982 or early 1983. Mrs Shipton said he had never
removed it before and the woman's claims that he was clean-shaven were
"absolutely not correct - my husband had a moustache for more than a
decade". She will continue giving evidence
when the trial resumes on Monday. |
