Louise Nicholas believes her case will help other women in similar circumstances. Photo / Alan Gibson
Louise Nicholas believes her case will help other women in similar circumstances. Photo / Alan Gibson
KEY POINTS:
Despite the not-guilty verdicts in the police sex cases, Louise Nicholas believes her case will make it easier for rape victims to come forward.
"If what I have done is going to help others I want to be part of that," said the woman whose public claims ofbeing raped by a succession of policemen when she was a teenager triggered the trials.
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.
She hoped law changes would be considered to make trials fairer for complainants whose lives were open slather to defence lawyers while the accused were protected from the same scrutiny.
"For a complainant to go through the experience of a rape trial takes a lot of guts. What women are scared of is being revictimised and you are. That rape is recurring, without the physical aspect."
She had felt as if she was on trial. "That's what I asked myself when the defence were slamming me around the courtroom, 'who is on trial here?' There is no need for that nastiness, that abuse and in my opinion that's what it was."
She felt some relief that she had done all she could in telling her story and putting up with the ordeal that involved.
Her husband, Ross, was angry that "once again [the men] have walked but we can see that a lot of good is going to come out of it".
"The future is looking good for victims and survivors of rape."
Without her case there would not be a commission of inquiry looking into police conduct or an examination of what lessons might be learnt from what had happened.
"When I look back over the injustices that have occurred, finally now after 20 years I have got the opportunity to perhaps right those wrongs. And I think I have done it. I know that. They might have been acquitted but that means nothing to me because I think a lot more has been achieved from it."
