Nicholas inquiry may look at other cases

By PATRICK GOWER

Police may widen their investigation into the Louise Nicholas allegations to include other mishandled sex complaints in the same district at the same time.

Commissioner Rob Robinson last night confirmed he was aware of the two other cases in the Bay of Plenty about the same time as Louise Nicholas' claims there was a cover-up of police allegedly pack-raping her.

He was responding to Herald inquiries which found:

* A police investigation was ordered into the conduct of an experienced police officer who gave evidence in two sex trials which collapsed in the Rotorua District Court.

After a man was acquitted of sexual impropriety in a third trial, the judge was scathing of the officer's conduct and awarded the defendant $20,000 costs for going through three trials.

* In 2000, Mr Robinson issued a formal apology to a 35-year-old woman who had complained to Murupara police that she was brutally raped in the early 1980s and whose case was badly mishandled.

There are parallels between the latter case and that of Mrs Nicholas, who has claimed that she was pack-raped as a teenager by three officers in a Rotorua police house about 1986.

Both women lived in Murupara around the time and both have battled to get police to respond.

Mr Robinson said the cases could be looked into as part of the internal inquiry he ordered into Mrs Nicholas' allegations being led by Deputy Commissioner Steve Long.

"My first tasking for Mr Long is to focus on Mrs Nicholas' complaints. And indeed, wherever that takes us there may be the indication of a need for a wider review.

"It is something that may emerge sooner rather than later. I'm not sure."

National Party police spokesman Tony Ryall said last night that any inquiry should be broadened in light of the other cases.

"There has been a large number of matters raised and we need to see if they are relevant to the inquiry."

Detective Inspector Graham Bell investigated the case of the Murupara woman, whose name has been suppressed, after she complained that no one looked into her allegations against a local shopkeeper until, some years later, he was charged with other rapes.

Now retired and presenting the television show Police 10-7, Mr Bell told the Herald he had been concerned by what he learned of the Murupara police. "I got the impression there was an unhealthy culture among the police who were stationed at Murupara at that time."

Mr Bell also wanted it known that he was not the police officer criticised in the court case.

* Email Patrick Gower