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Allegations of abuse
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Home / police allegations / Rickards,
Shipton, Schollum vs Jane Doe Page 2 - 2007 Trial of
Rickards, Shipton, Schollum Week 2 |
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Bob Schollum Justice Judith Potter has sent the
jury of eight men and four women in the police sex trial to deliberate on
their verdicts. Suspended Assistant Police
Commissioner Clint Rickards, 46, and former policemen Brad Shipton, 49, and
Bob Schollum, 54, deny charges of indecent assault and kidnapping a
16-year-old girl in Rotorua between November 1983 and August 1984. The woman
- who has name suppression - says they handcuffed her and sexually violated
her with a whisky bottle. Summing up the case for them in
the High Court at Auckland, the judge told the jury to put aside any views
they may have about last year's Louise Nicholas case as they decide the three
men's fate. The same men were last year
acquitted of 20 charges including the rape and sexual violation of Mrs
Nicholas when she was a teenager in Rotorua in the 1980s. Today, Justice Potter reiterated
her warning from the start of the trial last week that the jurors should
ignore anything about that case, which had attracted a lot of publicity. "Ignore anything you might
have heard from outside the court from any source," she said. Justice Potter said that the
accused should be tried "solely on the basis of the evidence". Earlier, the lawyer for Bob
Schollum distanced his client from the evidence of the wife of co-accused
Brad Shipton, after she was painted in court as a liar. Paul Mabey QC, in closing
submissions for Schollum, told the jury to put the evidence of Sharon Shipton
to one side. Mr Mabey said: "And if she
has (lied) it doesn't prove they are guilty." Mrs Shipton broke down in the
witness box yesterday after the alibi she gave her husband was contradicted. "She is not my witness, she
is not Mr Schollum's witness," Mr Mabey said. "I asked her no questions." "If she came here and lied
she is a very, very silly lady. Maybe she did it out of desperation to help
her husband, I don't know." Mr Mabey also said that while it
was not denied that Shipton had a sexual relationship with the alleged
16-year-old victim, and Schollum was his friend and knew the girl, this did
not prove the offence happened. |
