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Allegations of abuse
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Home / police allegations / Rickards,
Shipton, Schollum vs Jane Doe Page 5 - Further Reaction to
Not Guilty Verdict |
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Despite the not-guilty verdicts in
the police sex cases, Louise Nicholas believes her case will make it easier
for rape victims to come forward. "If what I have done is going
to help others I want to be part of that," said the woman whose public
claims of being raped by a succession of policemen when she was a teenager
triggered the trials. Louise Nicholas said "it
sucks" that juries were denied relevant information, such as convictions
for similar offending. That denied juries the context to the evidence they
were presented with and came with the risk that they were being blinkered. She hoped law changes would be
considered to make trials fairer for complainants whose lives were open
slather to defence lawyers while the accused were protected from the same
scrutiny. "For a complainant to go
through the experience of a rape trial takes a lot of guts. What women are
scared of is being revictimised and you are. That rape is recurring, without
the physical aspect." She had felt as if she was on trial.
"That's what I asked myself when the defence were slamming me around the
courtroom, 'who is on trial here?' There is no need for that nastiness, that
abuse and in my opinion that's what it was." She felt some relief that she had done
all she could in telling her story and putting up with the ordeal that
involved. Her husband, Ross, was angry that
"once again [the men] have walked but we can see that a lot of good is
going to come out of it". "The future is looking good
for victims and survivors of rape." Without her case there would not
be a commission of inquiry looking into police conduct or an examination of
what lessons might be learnt from what had happened. "When I look back over the
injustices that have occurred, finally now after 20 years I have got the
opportunity to perhaps right those wrongs. And I think I have done it. I know
that. They might have been acquitted but that means nothing to me because I
think a lot more has been achieved from it." |
