Allegations of abuse
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Home / police allegations / Rickards,
Shipton, Schollum vs Jane Doe Page 4 - Initial Reaction to
Not Guilty Verdict |
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Nothing in the acquittal of three
men today on sex charges suggested rules governing the suppression of
evidence must be changed, a Queen's Counsel says. Assistant police commissioner
Clint Rickards walked out of the High Court in A jury found him not guilty of
kidnapping and indecently assaulting a then 16-year-old girl in Rotorua more
than 20 years ago. While former policemen Brad
Shipton and Bob Schollum were also found not guilty, they returned to jail to
resume prison terms imposed for raping a 20-year-old Mt Maunganui woman in
1989. In 2005, Schollum was sentenced to
eight years and Shipton 8½ years. The fact they were in jail for a
similar offence to that they were facing was kept from the jury, as it might
have prejudiced their chances of a fair trial. But the jury would have been well
aware the pair – and Mr Rickards – were last year found not guilty of 20
historic sex charges against Rotorua woman Louise Nicholas. High profile "In the great majority of
cases the fact that somebody has been convicted or acquitted on an earlier
occasion is completely irrelevant," he said. "It happens more often that
you'd think, but (other cases) just don't get the publicity. "Each case must be judged on
its own merits according to the interests of justice, but particularly the
interests of justice so far as the accused are concerned. "There's nothing about this
that suggests the rules need to be reviewed." Nor were similarities between the
three cases involving Shipton and Schollum so compelling that a jury needed
to know of the parallels, Mr Toogood said "If they were so similar that
the similarities amounted to compelling and cogent evidence of guilt, then
the court could have admitted them. "There's a strict test for
admitting that sort of evidence. "You can be sure that if the
Crown thought there was a strong enough connection between the three cases to
justify running an argument that the similarities went to prove an element of
the charges, they would have run it. "They could have asked to be able
to do it, if they had thought `there is a case here'." |