Allegations of abuse by NZ Police
	peterellis Home / police allegations / Rickards, Shipton, Schollum vs Jane Doe Page 3 - 2007 Trial of Rickards, Shipton, Schollum - Verdict Not Guilty
	The Dominion Post March 2 2007; 5:00 Lid lifted on 'corrupt' cops "You, Shipton and Schollum were corrupt police officers. "Your arrogance, in my view, knew no bounds. "You were confident you could commit a serious crime and get away with it because you were policemen - and you almost did. "These were deeply disgraceful acts." It was August 2005, Wellington High Court, and former police officers Brad Shipton and Bob Schollum were led to prison with Justice Ron Young's words ringing in their ears. It is a story that can finally be told. The trial was shrouded with suppression orders designed to protect Schollum and Shipton's right to a fair trial in the two more cases they faced. While the Wellington jury knew of the Louise Nicholas allegations, they were told to put them aside and decide the case only on the evidence they heard. They were not told abouta third woman who had made allegations. In Wellington, Shipton was sentenced to 8 1/2 years on two charges of rape, one of abduction and one of sexual violation. Schollum, judged as having a slightly lesser part, received an eight-year jail term on one charge each of rape, sexual violation and abduction. Their crimes were committed on a 20-year-old woman in January 1989 at Mt Maunganui. She had fancied the then 30-year-old Shipton and had asked a go-between to arrange a lunch date with a man she saw as an imposing figure, very confident and with an arrogant air. Instead, she was lured to a beachside hut and raped by five men, she said. Schollum and Shipton were in uniform and a police car was parked nearby. One of the men was never identified. Schollum, then 36, Shipton, and a surf lifesaver Peter Mana McNamara, were convicted. Another surf lifesaver, Warren Graham Hales, was also initially convicted, but after an appeal that conviction was quashed. He was eventually convicted only of abduction. The men had said the woman consented to having sex with them, and they disputed her story that her hands had been bound and she was penetrated with an object. In the event, the jury acquitted Schollum and Shipton on the charge of using an object on her, which only they had faced. After the incident, Shipton visited her where she worked and at home. "She understood (and I understand) the message that she was being given by you by that visit," Justice Young said. "You were the police. There would be no complaint. You knew where she lived. And your intimidation worked. She did not complain." The woman eventually left New Zealand and even in Australia she said she was too scared to own anything or put her name to anything, for fear it would be a way they could find her. It was not till she returned to New Zealand on holiday in 2004, amid a blaze of publicity about the Louise Nicholas case, that she complained.