KEY POINTS:
The woman who has accused suspended police Assistant Commissioner Clint Rickards and two former policemen of sexually violating her has told the court she is trying "damn hard" to nail the conviction Louise Nicholas failed to get.
Under cross-examination yesterday the woman was questioned about embellishing her story and telling lies to impress the jury in the High Court at Auckland.
She told Paul Mabey, QC, lawyer for the accused Bob Schollum, that she wanted to ensure the trio - acquitted of rape and sexual violation charges against Mrs Nicholas last year - were convicted of the charges against her.
"I know poor Louise Nicholas lost her case and I am trying damn hard to make sure these guys are done."
Mabey said: "And you will say anything to get that?"
The woman, who cannot be named, replied: "I won't say anything, but I will say the truth."
Rickards, Schollum and Brad Shipton deny charges of kidnapping and indecent assault with a bottle on the woman, who was 16 at the time of the alleged attack in Rotorua sometime between November 1983 and August 1984.
The woman says Shipton straddled her and the other two stood on either side while she was chained to a bed with handcuffs and an indecency performed with a whisky bottle.
Mr Mabey had been cross-examining the woman on day three of the trial about what he said were inconsistencies in earlier statements when she was first contacted by police in 2004, and evidence she gave to the court.
Mr Mabey asked why she had never before mentioned having three or four glasses of whisky and lemonade before the attack until she took the witness stand. This included a 19-page police statement that had "not a dickie-bird" about quantity.
Mr Mabey said her evidence "was a lie by you to impress these people [the jury]". The woman said a lot of the inconsistencies arose because she had not been asked direct questions about it earlier.
The woman said she had many things going on at the time of the police statement in 2004, including looking after her four children and dealing with the break-up of a relationship.
She added there had been little notice or time for her to recall something that happened more than 20 years before.
Mr Mabey asked why she could not remember having a bruise on "your little wrist" if she was struggling against the metal handcuffs that had chained her to the bed as she had claimed.
Mr Mabey said Schollum denied the incident had ever happened.
The woman replied: "Of course he's going to deny it."
Under re-examination by Crown prosecutor Brent Stanaway, the woman said she had not learned of any information from other sources or had any conversations with Louise Nicholas in order to make her story similar.
She had never met Louise Nicholas before police investigating that case approached her in 2004 after finding her phone number in one of Shipton's old notebooks.
The woman said her mother had advised her against helping the police but she did it anyway.
She also told Mr Stanaway a photo from the time in which she could not identify Rickards was in black and white and of poor quality.
Earlier, Bill Nabney, for Shipton, questioned the woman about why her name and number was in Shipton's notebooks dated between 1985 and 1987. She has said she was in a consensual sexual relationship with Shipton before the alleged attack.
He said this was because she had stayed in contact with him.
She replied: "There is no way I would give Brad Shipton my phone number when I was going out with another guy."
THE CASE
* The Accused
Clinton John Tukutahi Rickards, 46.
Bradley Keith Shipton, 49.
Robert Francis Schollum, 54.
* The Charges
They deny kidnapping a 16-year-old girl and indecently assaulting her with a bottle sometime between November 1983 and August 1984 in Rotorua.
* The Alleged Victim
Now a 39-year-old mother of four, her claims came to light when detectives were investigating the Louise Nicholas rape allegations.
The detectives found references to her in one of Shipton's old police notebooks. She made her claims after they approached her, having never made a police complaint before. Her name is suppressed.
* The History
Rickards, Shipton and Schollum were acquitted last March of 20 charges, including the rape, sexual violation and indecent assault of Louise Nicholas when she was a teenager in Rotorua in 1985 and 1986.
* The Trial
Set down for two weeks in the High Court at Auckland before Justice Judith Potter and a jury of eight men and four women. The fourth day begins today.
