Police cover-up allegations: Rex Miller - blunt talker

By JULIE MIDDLETON

Former Detective Chief Inspector Rex Miller is a blunt talker with a dry sense of humour. He is frequently politically incorrect and fond of the odd colourful word.

But he is also articulate and straight-up. At one point in a wide-ranging conversation, he says: "If you tell the truth you don't have to have a good memory."

And he doesn't regret for a moment speaking out in support of mother-of-three Louise Nicholas, who has accused three men, all then policemen, of raping her in 1986, when she was 18. Mr Miller, then a detective chief inspector, was engaged by the Police Complaints Authority to look into the whole affair. But he says he was hamstrung by a wall of silence and alleges interference by John Dewar, then the head of Rotorua CIB.

Mr Dewar strongly rejects the claims and says he fully investigated Mrs Nicholas' complaints.

Mr Miller now says "if there is something to be resolved from it, let's resolve it. Not just for the three [officers] involved but for all cops who have to walk the beat tomorrow.

"I want to see it [the inquiry] bloody finished. If things aren't resolved to the nth degree, they always have a habit of jumping out of the cupboard."

Maybe that belief, and some niggling cop's sixth sense, led him to take into retirement his notebook with details of interviews with Mrs Nicholas. "I did, for some unknown reason, keep my notebook because I had some unease," he says.

He hopes he will be asked to assist with the latest investigation.

In a Waikato Times story on the eve of his retirement in 1999, Mr Miller was described as an old-school policeman, "staunch, conservative and an expert at dodging questions ... [he] has a gruff temperament that borders on grumpiness. He is also wise, very wise".

The story also said that some called him "dinosaur" behind his back.

Ask Mr Miller to describe himself and he says, instantly: "Straight down the middle. I call a spade a spade ... and I speak my mind."

When he was in the police he expected everyone, junior staff included, to speak up if they had issues or ideas. But, he says, "I'm pretty bloody average".

However, he has inspired another generation of officers: one daughter and a son are police officers in Hamilton. His second son is a paramedic in the US Army.

These days Mr Miller is golfing and fishing and teases that in being married to his wife, Jill, for 39 years, he has done nearly three life sentences.

Although Mr Miller says of his career that "every day was a highlight" - and that "it's a bloody highlight every day you wake up in the morning and you're breathing" - several events stand out.

Among them is the case of English tourist Margery Hopegood, stabbed to death by Wayne Paekau in a public toilet beside the Waikato River in 1992.

There's a lowlight, too. Mr Miller seems pretty sore about it still, and doesn't want to discuss the case of the five Gisborne police officers cleared of corruption charges in 1998.

He led the case against the men, but his Operation Vine team was berated after an independent inquiry by Judge Russell Callander. In July 2001 Mr Miller and another detective were paid $50,000 between them after filing personal grievance claims alleging that they were made scapegoats.

Rex Miller

Born: Pukekohe. Age: 60

August 1963: Starts as constable, aged 19, in Hamilton.

December 1965: Transfers to CIB in Auckland to train as detective.

1970-1982: Works in Henderson, Christchurch and the Trentham police college.

October 1982: Becomes detective inspector and transfers to Hamilton.

September 1986: Made detective chief inspector and head of Hamilton CIB.

March 2000: Retires.