KEY POINTS:
It is an axiom of our legal system that a man is innocent until proven guilty. From that it follows that a man found not guilty is innocent. Suggestions have surfaced over the years that juries be entitled to return a third kind of verdict - that of
"not proven". This verdict, if introduced, would quickly be known as the "yeah, right" verdict and would implicitly say, "We know you are as guilty as sin. If we abide by the directions of the judge and find according to the law, we can't pin it on you. But we will be damned if we will say you are innocent."
There are those who would like to claim that "not proven" is the most charitable verdict that might have been returned in the two trials of three police officers on historic rape charges, the second of which concluded last week. But that is wishful thinking. Suspended Assistant Police Commissioner Clint Rickards and his co-accused, Brad Shipton and Bob Schollum, were acquitted of all charges in both cases. They are not guilty and to say that they are not innocent strikes at a fundamental principle of our law.
That said, and however much Mr Rickards may wish to imagine otherwise, it is not the end of the matter. He may well say that he is still district commander at Auckland Central "and have been for the last three years" but that is true in no more than a technical sense. Whatever the outcome of disciplinary and employment matters now being undertaken within the organisation, Rickards has long ago surrendered the moral authority he needs to stand in charge of a major police district. If he had not already done so when details of his unseemly, not to say sordid, behaviour in Rotorua in the 1980s emerged during the trial, he certainly did when he emerged from court to launch a stinging attack on the police in Operation Austin, the team that investigated the rape cases. He also said of Shipton and Schollum, who are serving sentences for rape, that "they shouldn't be where they are."
To say, as he did, that Shipton and Schollum "are still good friends of mine and always will be" might have been dismissed as simply ill-judged, a remark made in the heat of the moment by a man fired up with post-acquittal euphoria.
But his bald assertion that his co-defendants are innocent of rape is more deeply problematic. Publicly attacking the justice system is a bad look for a commanding police officer, particularly when he has just been controversially acquitted by that very system. It smacks of a man who considers himself above the law. If he expects the world to accept his innocence, he must accept Shipton's and Schollum's guilt. They are two sides of the same coin.
It is impossible to imagine that Rickards might be able to take charge again in a police force he has brought into such spectacular disrepute. It is unthinkable that a man with his demonstrated idea of what constitutes consent should have rape investigations conducted under his oversight. It is the height of hubris and arrogance for him to think he can simply pick up where he left off when he was suspended.
If nothing else, Rickard owes the force the catharsis that his quick exit might provide. The "women's march against police rape" organised in Auckland on Thursday and the bad-taste bogus recruiting posters that appeared around Wellington were, in their generic wording, an insult to the thousands of decent officers who take daily risks on behalf of us all. But they were the ugly tip of a large iceberg of public disquiet that has surfaced in the wake of these cases. If Mr Rickards thinks he can deal with it simply by getting his legs under the desk, he confirms both his poor judgment and the justice of the increasing demand that he must stand down.
