KEY POINTS:
Secrecy shrouding key evidence in Louise Nicholas' claims of pack rape by policemen has been lifted - revealing the man who originally investigated the allegations is charged with attempting to obstruct or defeat the course of justice.
Former detective inspector John Dewar, who denies the charges, led the
Rotorua CIB and handled Ms Nicholas' accusation that she was pack raped by Clint Rickards, Brad Shipton and Bob Schollum between September 1985 and December 1986.
The men said the sex was consensual and were acquitted after a High Court trial last year. The trio were also acquitted this week of kidnapping and of indecently assaulting a woman with a whisky bottle.
Shipton and Schollum are in jail for the kidnapping and rape of a woman at Mt Maunganui. The 1989 assault included violation with a police baton.
Suppression orders lifted yesterday allow the Weekend Herald to publish evidence about the use of police batons by Shipton and Schollum during sex sessions.
Ms Nicholas alleged that Shipton approached her with a baton and a pot of Vaseline after she was raped by all three men.
She said she told him, "No f ... no way."
"The bedroom wall was there and I could go no further, I couldn't go anywhere, he had this dirty smirk on his face, this smirk."
The jury in the trial heard from four secret witnesses, three former police officers who can now be identified and a woman who has continued name suppression.
John Donald, a former police officer who was stationed in Rotorua in the 1980s, said Shipton had told him "he [Shipton] and Rickards ... had been with a sheila, they had even used a baton on her, and that she was gagging for it".
Shipton told him the woman was aged 17.
Another former police officer, Kevin Tunnell, said that Shipton told him in June or July of 1983 that he had used his police baton in the course of sexual activity with a woman or women at a party the previous night.
Mr Tunnell said he was left with the impression that the baton had been used as a sex aid and that four or five people were present at the time.
The third witness, John Reynolds, a former police officer who worked in Rotorua between 1982 and June 1984, spoke of using a police baton in a group sex session with Schollum and a young woman they had met in a bar.
Another witness, who has continued name suppression, gave evidence that she had consensual threesomes with Shipton and Schollum during 1983-84, and a police baton was used on one occasion.
In pre-trial judgement, Justice Tony Randerson ruled the baton evidence was of value, and he did not believe it would prejudice the defence.
"The distinctive characteristics of the behaviour of which these witnesses depose is that it involves joint sexual activity by two serving police officers featuring the use of a police baton.
"That this kind of activity is sufficiently unusual or distinctive is emphasised by the reactions of some of the witnesses who were so repulsed by what they were told that they had a clear recollection of the relevant conversations."
Shipton and Schollum denied using a police baton in the way alleged.
Justice Randerson said the importance of that challenged baton evidence "is that it tends to show that each of them did, on occasions, indulge in sexual activity with the use of a police baton.
"That tends to support the complainants' evidence that activity of this kind did occur and tends to discredit the denials by Messrs Schollum and Shipton of the occurrence of conduct of this kind."
The evidence would support Ms Nicholas' account, "leaving the issue of whether that occurred without consent for determination upon all the evidence".
Justice Randerson said the trial jury would need to be told the evidence was only against the accused involved in the respective conversations outlined by the witnesses.
Justice Randerson said it would need to be made clear to the jury that none of the accounts were evidence that Mr Rickards engaged in activities with a baton, "except to the extent that it might support the complainant's account of what happened".
The Court of Appeal found that evidence about use of police batons "should be confined to the support it provides for Ms Nicholas' evidence that Messrs Shipton and Schollum used a baton in the course of group sex with her".
The baton evidence should be "disregarded" when considering if Mr Rickards was involved in such activity.
Evidence of baton use was never raised in the latest trial.
Dewar's trial will take place later this year.
