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Home / police allegations / Rickards,
Shipton, Schollum vs Jane Doe Page 3 - 2007 Trial of
Rickards, Shipton, Schollum - Verdict Not Guilty |
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IT'S OVER: Assistant police
commissioner Clint Rickards, and ex-police officers Bob Schollum and Brad
Shipton have been acquitted of all charges in a historic sex case. BREAKING NEWS: Suspended assistant
police commissioner Clint Rickards and former policemen Brad Shipton and Bob
Schollum have been found not guilty of kidnapping and indecently assaulting a
then 16-year-old girl in the 1980s. The woman accused the trio -
acquitted by a High Court jury last March of the rape, sexual violation and
indecent assault of Louise Nicholas when she was a teenager in Rotorua in the
1980s - of handcuffing her to a bed and sexually assaulting her between
November 1983 and August 1984. The men denied the incident ever happened. The jury retired at 1.20pm
yesterday at the High Court at Auckland and took until midday today to reach
their decision after a case that began on Monday, February 19. The prosecution said Shipton had
been in a relationship with the girl and she had gone to a house where the
three men had been drinking. She claimed she was carried into a
bedroom against her will and had a bottle inserted into her after being
handcuffed. Defence lawyers for the accused
said there were too many holes and inconsistencies in the woman's story for
it to be true. The case has been punctuated by
some dramatic testimony, with the wife of Shipton breaking down on the stand
on Tuesday after being accused of trying to influence evidence her cousin
gave. Sharon Shipton had earlier told
the court she and her husband had taken a month-long holiday in the lower
North Island during part of the time of the alleged offences in Rotorua. They had stayed with her cousin
Christine Filer in Wanganui, she said. However, Ms Filer was called by
the defence and contradicted Mrs Shipton, telling the jury the Shiptons had
not stayed for such a period. Mrs Shipton was then recalled to
the stand and accused of contacting her cousin last week to try and influence
what she would say. She emotionally denied doing so. Mr Rickards' lawyer argued
throughout the case that the alleged victim's had wrongly identified his
client, throwing her entire story into doubt. During much of the period when the
offences were alleged to have happened, he said Mr Rickards was on crutches
and was also a uniformed officer, two factors that disagreed with the woman's
claims. If there was an incident, he said
Mr Rickards had not been involved. |
