Clint Rickards. Photo / Dean Purcell
Louise Nicholas plans to ask the Auckland District Law Society not to give former assistant police commissioner Clint Rickards a "good character" certificate so he can become a practising lawyer.
Mrs Nicholas accused Mr Rickards and two other former police officers Brad Shipton, Bob Schollum of raping her
in the early 1980s. All three were acquitted in March last year, but it was revealed later that Shipton and Schollum had been convicted in 2005 of the pack rape of another woman in Mt Maunganui in 1989.
Mr Rickards, who resigned from the police in November last year, has completed a law degree at Auckland University and applied to the High Court in Auckland for admission as a barrister and solicitor. Seeking a certificate of good character from the Auckland District Law Society is part of that process.
Society president Keith Berman said Mr Rickards could still apply to the court without a certificate from the society, but the court would inquire why a certificate had not been given.
The certificate application was notified today in the society's newsletter.
"We would not want to prejudge it. Obviously it is an application that will be looked at carefully," Mr Berman told NZPA.
Mr Rickards' certificate application was open for submissions, from the public as well as the legal profession, until September 12.
Mrs Nicholas told NZPA she would "most definitely" make a submission.
"If I am able I will put a submission in and say I am not happy with it (Mr Rickards being given a certificate) at all," she said.
- NZPA
