KEY POINTS:
Anyone who ever wondered if Louise Nicholas was telling the truth should read this book and weep. The story is written in slices: a third from journalist Philip Kitchin and two-thirds by Nicholas. While Kitchin's part is sophisticated, rigorous and painstakingly researched, her voice is that of a country girl who enjoyed riding her pony, Dolly, and milking dairy cows.
She writes of how her childhood was ripped away when she was 13. She'd never had her period, never even fumbled around with a boy when she was raped by the local policeman. To this day she has had only one boyfriend, now her husband of 19 years, Ross.
Picture an ordinary family in a small town, where the police reign supreme. Nicholas' dad was a storeman who co-ordinated Murupara Search and Rescue in his spare time, working closely with the local police. The kids were taught the difference between right and wrong, to say please and thank you and respect the cops. In terms of social class (something we try to believe doesn't exist in New Zealand) they had little power.
But pretty, petite Louise, the only girl in a family of four, had ambition. She wanted to be a vet, do the things other kids do, do her big OE.
Her nightmare started with a policeman the book calls Sam Brown (he has permanent name suppression) who, writes Nicholas, beckoned the 13-year-old into the police station when she was walking home. He took her inside and raped her. Although she cried and cried no one came. He did it again.
Why didn't she tell her mother? The book tells of a combination of shame - probably the same reason I didn't tell mine when someone touched me in Dad's gun cupboard when I was about 10 - and the fear she wouldn't be believed. These men were the town heroes.
In convincing detail Nicholas goes on to recount how "Brown" not only used her for sex whenever he had the chance, but also ensured she became a plaything for the rest of the force. It was as though, having been raped once, she became a target: police property. They thought she'd put up with it for so long they were safe. She'd never complain; if she did, no-one would believe her.
For Nicholas, it became a half life. Although she moved to Rotorua, got a bank job, married Ross and had two daughters, she became more and more depressed. She carried her disgust and shame. She had a horror of police that made her shake when she saw a uniform or a police car. Counselling didn't help. Meanwhile her "reputation" spread to the local youths who came up to her while she was wheeling her baby in the garden, offering $5 for sex.
"I ached to be able to tell [Ross] what was going on but was scared that if I did he would decide I was a dirty bitch who was letting this happen and enjoying it - or that I was nuts and wouldn't believe me either. Whichever way it went, I couldn't see how he would stay with me."
In the end she did tell him, and although "he was gutted" he never doubted her. And he stayed.
Driven by the need to clear her name and regain her life, Nicholas decided to fight back. But first she had to do the hardest thing a mother could be asked to do - tell her children and get their permission to go ahead. She had been approached by co-author Kitchin, who wanted to go public with her story. By then Jess was 13 (the age her mother was when she was first raped) Kerriann 11 and McKaela nine - impressionable ages around love and sexuality. How on earth did she manage it?
It says something about Nicholas' parenting that the girls, after their initial tears, just wanted justice. "They told me that I must do the right thing - and that was tell, so these bad men couldn't hurt anyone else. My heart just about burst with pride."
Six months later, when Jess had to write a speech about "the person I admire most" for school she wrote about her mother. On the front that meant most to her, the future of her daughters, Nicholas had done the right thing. She had given them an example of true courage.
Over the decade Louise Nicholas stood in the witness box seven times, obliged to pick over the most painful, moments of her life for a total of 10 days of cross-examination by six defence lawyers.
This is not an enjoyable book but it is important because it gets behind the suppressions, inadmissible evidence and deceptions to pull together the threads of this sorry story in New Zealand policing history. The detail, the tone, and the information are all chilling. While I was reading it I couldn't get to sleep or think of anything else. Not because I was sorry for Nicholas, but because I felt such shame for a system of which we used to be so proud and which allowed men in authority to behave like a pack of dogs - and then protect them.
I only hope that if my little grand-daughter grows up and meets an amorous boy or man in authority she thinks of Nicholas and says "no".
Do I believe Louise Nicholas? Every word.
* Published by Random House, $36.99
