KEY POINTS:
Former top cop Clint Rickards is just months away from completing a law degree - and may have his sights set on Louise Nicholas, the woman who ended his 28-year police career.
Rickards, who rose through the ranks to assistant commissioner, began studying law at the University of
Auckland four years ago after he was suspended on full pay and charged with raping and sexually abusing Nicholas in the 1980s.
He and fellow former officers Brad Shipton and Bob Schollum were eventually acquitted, but the ensuing fallout cost Rickards his police career.
Since resigning as assistant commissioner last November, Rickards has been working full time on his law degree and a book detailing the nearly three decades he spent in the police.
The Herald on Sunday could not reach Rickards for comment, but sources close to him confirmed he planned to pursue Nicholas when he had completed his law degree. They said Rickards was considering legal options, including a private prosecution against Nicholas for perjury for what he believed were conflicting statements made under oath in court.
Police have received a number of perjury complaints against Nicholas by former top detective John Dewar, who was jailed last year on charges of covering up Nicholas' original rape allegations.
These complaints are understood to be part of Dewar's appeal against his conviction, which is set to be heard on July 17.
Police confirmed they were looking into the perjury accusations. For privacy reasons, they declined to say whether or not they had received another perjury complaint from the former Murupara officer arrested by Dewar on charges on having unlawful sex and indecently assaulting Nicholas when she was 13.
The case against that officer was eventually thrown out after Dewar gave inadmissible evidence at two of the man's three trials.
The former officer, whom Nicholas refers to her in book Louise Nicholas: My Story as Sam Brown, confirmed to the Herald on Sunday he had filed a perjury complaint with police against Nicholas, who declined to comment about Rickards' plan or the new perjury complaint.
However, in relation to Dewar, Nicholas has previously said it was time he accepted he was found guilty of perverting the course of justice by 12 of his peers.
"If I did or said anything that was a total crock then I'm sure the police would have done me for perjury or at the very least not pursued with charges against Dewar," she earlier told the Herald on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Shipton appears for the first time before the Parole Board this week. He was convicted in 2005, with Schollum, Warren Hales and Peter McNamara, of the 1989 rape of a woman at Mt Maunganui.
