Allegations 'should have triggered alarm bells'

By EUGENE BINGHAM

Fresh revelations about the background pack-rape allegations by Louise Nicholas show she first complained of sexual abuse by police as a schoolgirl.

Court documents record evidence that her mother sought help for her but was put off by a local policeman - later accused of also interfering with Mrs Nicholas.

Details about Mrs Nicholas' claims were aired in three trials held in Rotorua during 1993-1994, although they were covered by suppression orders lifted only yesterday.

The trials related to a former policeman accused by Mrs Nicholas of indecently assaulting and having sex with her in 1983, when she was 15 and boarding with him and his family.

The first two trials were aborted because of inadmissible evidence given by Detective Inspector John Dewar. The third jury acquitted the former policeman, whose name remains suppressed.

During the trial, Mrs Nicholas' separate allegation came to light, that she had been pack raped and violated with a baton by three other police officers: Clint Rickards (who has been stood down as district commander of the Auckland police), Brad Shipton (now a Tauranga district councillor and bar owner) and Bob Schollum (now a Napier car salesman).

Mrs Nicholas' allegations are the subject of a commission of inquiry and a top-level criminal investigation ordered after she went public in January claiming that the pack-rape complaint was covered up by Mr Dewar.

She alleges that seven officers committed sexual offences against her but when she sought to make a formal complaint to the police in 1993, Mr Dewar had discouraged her from making official accusations against six of them.

In her evidence against the seventh, Mrs Nicholas said that he first had sex with her while she was a 13-year-old.

The first time, she said, was in a police station.

There was evidence that not long after the alleged sexual contact began, she swallowed a bottle of pills, but the antihistamines had no effect.

Mrs Nicholas' mother, Barbara Crawford, told the court that in 1983 the former policeman offered to let Mrs Nicholas board with his family in Rotorua. But the former policeman and his wife said Mrs Nicholas' parents had asked if she could stay with them.

Mrs Nicholas said she protested about going, and alleged that the abuse continued during the two to three months she was boarding there.

The former policeman denied all sexual contact.

She returned home after the former policeman confronted Mrs Crawford and said that her daughter was saying he was having sex with her.

Mrs Crawford said she went to see a policeman who was also a friend of the family.

"He just advised that there was nothing I really could do about it - who would believe a young girl against a police [officer]," Mrs Crawford told the first trial.

"I must admit I had the same thought. He suggested I didn't tell my husband and I didn't want to either."

One of Mrs Nicholas' teachers said that she had noticed changes in her behaviour during the fifth form.

In her capacity as school guidance counsellor, the teacher later asked Mrs Nicholas what was wrong.

"She told me that there was a sexual relationship that she had been involved in with an older man and I understood he was a family friend and as I recall later I believe he was a police person," said the teacher.

Under cross-examination in the third trial, Mrs Nicholas also admitted telling the teacher that she had been raped by a group of Maori youths out riding their horses.

"I don't know why I had said that. Obviously I did but I have never been raped by any Maori on horseback."

The trials heard that in January 1993, after counselling, Mrs Nicholas told her parents about what had happened. Her father contacted a policeman he knew, then Senior Sergeant Ray Sutton.

Mr Dewar assumed responsibility for the complaint and took two statements from her that year, although they only related to the former policeman eventually charged.

At the time, she had accused several other policemen. One of them was the officer Mrs Crawford said told her to forget about complaining.

Mrs Nicholas also named Mr Rickards, Mr Shipton and Mr Schollum, but Mr Dewar said he advised her not to make a statement.

"Those details were non-specific in time and event and I wished to give her the opportunity to consider those matters, to collect her memory, and then later if she so wished to do so, make a formal complaint," he told the second trial.

He eventually took a statement about Mr Rickards and the other officers in February 1994.

The allegations against the officers accused of interfering with her as a teenager were found to have been not proved - a decision backed up by the Police Complaints Authority at the time. Another Police Complaints Authority investigation criticised Mr Dewar's handling of the pack-rape complaint.

The actions of Mr Dewar were also criticised by a judge who said that Mrs Nicholas' allegations "should have triggered alarm bells that would have permanently silenced Big Ben no matter how vague in terms of time and event or place".

"Even more surprising than the failure to record [the allegations] is the officer's deliberate advice ... not to make a statement," said Judge Michael Lance, QC.

Judge Lance said that the fact the former policeman was the only one pursued while allegations against serving officers went unrecorded lent weight to arguments that the defendant was a "sacrificial lamb".

The judge in the second trial said the actions of Mr Dewar leading to the trial being aborted raised a question mark about his motives.

The allegations against all seven policemen are being re-examined by investigators headed by Superintendent Nick Perry. Mr Dewar has taken leave from St John Ambulance in Hamilton while the commission of inquiry is underway. He denies any wrongdoing.