|
This page last updated June 1 2007
March 3-4 2007; Summaries
of the case
The NZ Herald gives a
review of the three cases involving a woman at Mt Maunganui (Guilty verdicts)
and the allegations by Louise Nicholas (Not Guilty verdicts) and the latest trial
(Not Guilty verdicts). With comments about academics involved in studies on
rape: Nicola Gavey (Auckland) refers to the morality and ethics of
the defendants, and finds the defence of consensual sex was "implausible" and
"doesn't ring true"
Jan Jordan (Victoria) does not believe the trials put
enough emphasis on the power imbalance that existed.
Rachel
Morton of the NZ Herald provides
a list of the main people involved
Michael
Laws writes in the Sunday Star Times: The jury verdict from the trial
of Clint Rickards, Brad Shipton and Bob Schollum was absolutely inevitable.
The burden of reasonable doubt was always going to be too high a mountain to
climb. As was similarly plain with the Louise Nicholas case. More important:
the police knew this. Especially after the Nicholas case. There was even less
evidence and less corroboration in this current trial. I have little doubt
that the attorney-general and Crown Law so advised the police. But they
persisted…… The truth is that the Rickards trials were politically motivated.
2007-0303 - NZ Herald - Brad
Shipton - Leader of the pack
2007-0304 - NZ Herald - The players
2007-0304 - Sunday Star Times - Do us a
favour, mate
March 4 2007; "Loyalty
of the wives"; Inside the mind of Rickards
Examples of why Clint Rickards is so damning of
media coverage?
2007-0304 - Sunday Star Times - Loyalty a
virtue, but God help the wives
2007-0304 - Sunday Star Times - Inside
the mind of Rickards
March 4 2007; Louise
Nicholas father falls ill “with stress”
"This whole thing has been tough
for Dad," Louise says
2007-0304 - NZ Herald - Father
falls ill 'with stress'
March 4 2007; Clint
Rickards tells his story
 Clint
Rickards is interviewed by Miriyana Alexander of the Sunday Star Times. Clint Rickard:
·
describes his shame over his past
behaviour - but says while he can be accused of being a "tomcat",
he's no rapist. The most he is guilty of, he says, is infidelity
·
has bitter condemnation for Nicholas, saying if he ran into
her now: "I would be physically sick. "Louise Nicholas had courted
the media and sought sympathy for all those years... we were finally able to
say to the jury hang on, there's another side to this, look what this woman
has done.
·
says "the media were keeping the story alive to
justify their ongoing attacks on him"
·
says he does not know why he was being judged so harshly
by the public and said those without sin should cast the first stone.
"How many juries does a man have to go through? How many times does a
man have to be persecuted?"
·
He does not resile from his public support of Schollum and
Shipton, whom he said were innocent and should not be in jail
·
He is damning of the Operation Austin police inquiry into
the rape claims - one of the country's most expensive police investigations -
saying it was a "shabby" investigation he would have been ashamed
to lead. He says witnesses were coached, inconsistencies were overlooked, and
that police were on a witch hunt to "get Clint Rickards"
·
He is equally damning of the media coverage of his case,
describing it as gutter journalism. He said the media tried and convicted him
before he even went to court. "The fact that they continued to publish
defamatory, biased and in some cases totally incorrect information is a sad
indictment on the integrity and objectivity of the media."
·
describes his sense of betrayal after his mentor and
friend, former police commissioner Rob Robinson, sent deputy commissioner
Steve Long to try to convince him to resign. Rickards said he was gobsmacked:
"What happened to innocent until proven guilty?"
2007-0304 - Sunday Star Times -
Rickards: 'I did things I'm ashamed of'
2007-0304 - Sunday Star Times -
Rickards - the interview
2007-0304 - NZ Herald - 'My life has
been destroyed'
March 4 2007; Louise
Nicholas accused of vendetta
Greg
Shipton
The family of jailed former cop Brad Shipton has accused Louise Nicholas of
orchestrating a "revenge-at-all-costs" vendetta to punish the men,
who testified against her in her first rape complaint against police. Brad
Shipton's brother Greg, a former police officer of 16 years, says she
was humiliated after her original rape complaint was thrown out. When
allegations resurfaced in 2004, she "made a meal out of it" to hurt
the men whose testimony had damaged her 1994 case.
Clint
Rickards has nothing but contempt for Nicholas - "I've already
said in court that she is a liar and I don't resile from that, she is evil
and manipulative" Nicholas has at
various times accused seven police officers of sexual crimes against her -
some have been tried, but none have been convicted. She has also admitted
making a false rape complaint against a group of Maori youths
Louise Nicholas,
described as "a liar, evil and
manipulative".
"Has a history of false rape complaints"
Louise
Nicholas, meanwhile, remains defiant. "Why would I lie about this,
why would I make this stuff up?" She says she is convinced more women
will surface to support her claims and says her focus is on changing police
culture and ensuring a better deal for rape victims
Clint
Rickards responds to Nicholas' question. Rickards can't answer why -
"I don't know what's inside her head" - but believes it was done
for attention and revenge when she considers people wrong her. "It is
also non-acceptance of responsibility on her part for her actions when she
was young. She can't accept the way she was and blames everyone else as being
responsible."
2007-0304 - NZ Herald - Sex
accuser's 'vendetta'
2007-0304 - NZ Herald - 'Why would
I lie about this, why would I make this up?'
2007-0304 - Sunday Star Times -
Rickards - the interview
March 3 2007; Comments by
John Haigh on group sex scrutinised
John
Haigh
When Mr Rickards was asked on
Thursday if he thought group sex was an appropriate activity for a serving
police officer, his lawyer, John Haigh, QC, interrupted, saying the question
was irrelevant and "half of New Zealand has done it".
Yesterday, Mr Haigh backed down from his comments made outside the court. He
described them as a "throwaway remark" made when he was caught up
in the emotional scenes after the verdict.
2007-0303 - NZ Herald - Group-sex
rate overstated but growing
2007-0305 - Sensible
Sentencing Trust - Group sex comments slur on legal fraternity
March 3 2007; Prime
Minister reveals she knew of historical allegations against Rickards
Prime
Minister, Helen Clark
Prime Minister Helen Clark has revealed she knew of the charges facing Clint
Rickards before his appointment as Assistant Police Commissioner. Clark told
reporters in Auckland
she was aware of the historical charges against Rickards, and says he was not
her preferred candidate for the job
2007-0303 - One News - Clark knew
Rickards faced charges
2007-0303 - Newstalk ZB -
Rickards not PM's preferred job candidate
March 3 2007; Costs of
Operation Austin
The costs of Operation Austin, the investigation into alleged misconduct by Rotorua
police in the 1980s, is counted
2007-0303 - NZ Herald - $7m bill for
trials and inquiries
March 3 2007; Rickards
legal defence discussed
Defence
lawyer John Haigh (left) and
Clint Rickards
Rickards had attempted to have a separate trial from Shipton and Schollum, in
part because of concern he could have been tainted by the convictions of Shipton and
Schollum, which had become public knowledge. It was also felt that Rickards
had a stronger defence: While Shipton and Schollum knew the complainant,
Rickards said that he had never seen her in his life, and was prepared to
face cross examination about this. Mr Rickards also had the defence that he
was incapacitated after a knee operation for some of the period during which
the alleged indecent assault with a whisky bottle took place.
2007-0303 - NZ Herald -
Rickards' lawyer pushed for a separate trial
March 3 2007; Court of
Appeal stopped two rape trials being heard together.
The two police rape trials of Clint Rickards, Brad
Shipton and Bob Schollum were to have been heard together but a Court of
Appeal ruling said that despite the "remarkable" common features, a
single trial would cause "illegitimate prejudice"…… Sorting out the legal
directions for a single jury raised a real risk of confusion from a
"bewildering array of directions", the Court of Appeal said
2007-0303 - Dominion Post -
Court of Appeal stopped joint trial
2007-0303 - Dominion Post
- 'Remarkable common features' in the cases
March 3-4 2007; Further
debate over jury not being told of Shipton Schollum convictions
Louise
Nicholas.
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.
Andrea
Black, from Rape Crisis, has no doubt the trial, or an earlier one
involving Louise Nicholas, would have turned out differently if the jury knew
about the convictions. (peterellis.org.nz comment: News
reports from March 2 provide evidence that the jury did know about the
convictions. Refer Page 4)
Graeme
Newell
However, the President of the Criminal Bar Association, Graeme Newell said
lack of suppression orders could lead to miscarriages of justice. Someone's
history should not be used against them, The Criminal Bar Association
represents lawyers, judges and prosecutors who work in the criminal justice
system.
The
Prime Minister, Helen Clark commented: "I am absolutely appalled
at what was going on and what we've seen reported in our media now the
suppression order's been lifted". She said the cases may result in
changes. "We need to reflect on what has happened and consider whether
the law of evidence as it stands at the moment is appropriate."
The
Sunday Star Times editorial says there are now calls for the police
records of defendants to be revealed in court, but that would be a bad step….
The old cliche about justice having to be seen to be done remains true. If a
defendant's previous convictions are aired in court, outsiders as well as the
accused might think he was convicted because of that fact.
Raybon Kan provides his opinion
in the Sunday Star Times: Should
the juries in this trial and the Louise Nicholas trial have been told? Well, of
course not. Duh. What do you think juries would have made of it? Well, look
at the public reaction. The size of headlines. This is precisely why it
shouldn't have been told to the jury. …. ….I remember how I felt when I first
received the Louise Nicholas pamphlet. Good grief (to put it mildly). I
wanted to tell everyone. Talk about juicy. Two men on trial for rape -
policemen at that - are already doing time for a separate rape! They must be
guilty of this one too! ……… To state the plainly obvious, just because
someone did something once, doesn't mean they did it on a separate occasion.
I don't think anyone can disagree with this as a principle.
Kerre
Woodham says each and every case must be tried on its merits, and if
the evidence in one case is not sufficient to convict, then it would be very
wrong to convict purely on the basis of an earlier trial. You can't be tried
for the same crime twice, and allowing the records of criminals into court
would, in effect, be doing that.
2007-0303 - NZ Herald - A lot of
good will come out of this, says Louise Nicholas
2007-0303 - Radio NZ - Rape
Crisis wants juries to know about previous convictions
2007-0303 - Dominion Post -
Lawyers say system works
2007-0304 - Stuff - Evidence laws may
need looking at - Clark
2007-0304 - Sunday Star Times - The
trial's over, but the doubt goes on
2007-0304 - Sunday Star Times -
Guilty verdicts
2007-0304 - NZ Herald - It's a case
of 'she said, he said'
March 3 2007; New (non
criminal) claims against Rickards may affect job negotiations
Clint
Rickards
New allegations that Rickards had intercourse with a woman on the
bonnet of a police car in 1983, is one of the "employment issues"
being investigated by police. The car bonnet sex allegations could be used by
the police to force Mr Rickards out
2007-0303 - Stuff - Rickards
facing more damaging conduct claims
2007-0303 - NZ Herald -
Rickards faces new claim of sex on bonnet of police car
March 3-4 2007; Further
debate on whether Rickards should get job back
The NZ Herald editorial argues
that Rickards should not get his job back: "The moral authority demanded of an
assistant police commissioner has been shattered during these proceedings. In
a way, his tirade outside the court, when he denounced the police
investigation into the cases and defiantly proclaimed his continued
friendship with Shipton and Schollum, despite their rape convictions,
acknowledged as much, as well as exacerbating his alienation"
A former head of the Police Association, Rob Moodie, says Clint Rickards'
return to work will depend on what proceedings, if any, the police
commissioner is planning to take against him
The
Sunday Star Times editorial says the legal principle - innocent till
proven guilty - requires the police to employ Rickards again. The political
principle - that those in powerful public roles must be above suspicion
-means he cannot become the Auckland
commander again
2007-0303 - NZ Herald -
Rickards must not get job back
2007-0303 - Radio NZ -
Rickards' return to work depends on commissioner - Moodie
2007-0304 - Sunday Star Times - The
trial's over, but the doubt goes on
|
