Allegations of abuse by NZ Police
	peterellis Home / police allegations / Rickards, Shipton, Schollum vs Jane Doe Page 6 - Further Reaction to Not Guilty Verdict
	The Press March 6 2007 PM weighs in against Rickards by Colin Espiner Political pressure is mounting on police bosses to sack suspended police commander Clint Rickards, with Prime Minister Helen Clark labelling his conduct ``an abuse of power''. The Government is considering asking the Law Commission to investigate whether juries should be told about the past convictions of defendants, in the wake of a public outcry over suppressed information in the police sex trials. Clark spoke out for the first time yesterday on the cases after days of controversy over the acquittal of Rickards and former policemen Brad Shipton and Bob Schollum on charges of kidnapping and indecently assaulting a 16-year-old girl in Rotorua in the 1980s. It was the third in a series of trials involving police officers. Last year, a jury cleared Rickards, Shipton and Schollum of a total of 20 charges of sexual violation and indecent assault against Rotorua woman Louise Nicholas in 1986. Despite Rickards' acquittal, calls are growing for his dismissal from the force, including Auckland Mayor Dick Hubbard declaring Rickards was not welcome back as police commander for his city. Former police minister John Banks also called for his sacking. Clark yesterday refused to comment on whether Rickards was a suitable person to continue as district commander of the Auckland police, saying the matter was now an employment issue. But she said she could understand where Hubbard and Banks were coming from. There had clearly been ``an abuse of power'' by all three in the so- called consensual sex they had been involved in. Clark said she had been ``absolutely appalled'' by what she had read about the case since the latest verdicts. ``And I do say that while there may be a legal meaning to the term consent, I have to question whether there can be any genuine consent where you have police officers in a position of responsibility in a community engaging in group sex with a teenage girl,'' she said after the weekly Cabinet meeting. ``The thing which has most disturbed me about it is the abuse of power, and I just cannot see how one can use the term consensual when you have police officers in a regional town and we are talking about teenage girls.'' She believed rapes of young women were probably under- reported because many victims did not want to come forward. It is not the first time Clark has stepped into Rickards' career. She declined to appoint him deputy commissioner in 2000 after being advised of his past conduct and allegations of sexual offending. Rickards' position became more untenable last night when National leader John Key said Rickards had also lost the confidence of the Opposition. ``It would be in everyone's best interests if Mr Rickards packed up his tent and moved on,'' Key told TV3. As the fallout from the trial continues, the Government is considering allowing juries to be told more about the past convictions of defendants. Clark said the level of public outcry over the news that the two former policemen acquitted last week were already serving jail terms for rape was such that the Government was bound to look at changes to the laws of evidence. The Law Commission was probably the best body to consider such a change, and it was likely the Government would ask it to conduct an inquiry, she said. ``I think the debate around this trial means inevitably that that issue will have to be looked at. That would certainly find some favour with me. It has been so controversial that one feels almost bound to take the matter further,'' Clark said. The police watchdog will review the police investigation of Rickards, Schollum and Shipton. Police Complaints Authority manager of investigations Allan Galbraith said the authority had been monitoring Operation Austin, and now prosecutions had been completed, it would review the investigations. "It's a normal thing for us to do, when there's a complaint against police, to monitor investigations and at the end produce a report,'' he said. The report should take up to three months to complete.