Composure falters as sex claims recalled

Louise Nicholas enters courtroom 12 with her eyes fixed on the floor. The slender 38-year-old is diminutive against a landscape of eight bat-winged lawyers, several black-robed court attendants and Justice Tony Randerson at his raised desk.

She doesn't look in the direction of the three men on her left, all dressed in dark suits, who are accused of raping her 20 years ago.

Assistant Police Commissioner Clint Rickards and former officers Bradley Shipton and Robert Schollum, arrayed behind their lawyers, stay facing forward. She does not look at them; not even one snatched glance.

"Will you take the Bible?" asks the court attendant. "I will," Mrs Nicholas replies, the microphone capturing a level voice.

She fixes her gaze on Crown solicitor Brent Stanaway, who engages in a leisurely question-and-answer session which paints an ordinary life.

Composed, but with a near-frown on her face, Mrs Nicholas answers queries about where she was born, where she went to school, the jobs she had after she left at 16, where she flatted, how she met the accused.

Her speech is level and to the point, her accent rural New Zealand.

Photos of the places she has lived and worked in flash up on the courtroom's computer screens; her expression lightens into a fleeting, smile of recognition when she sees the caravan in a Rotorua caravan park which was once the temporary family home.

There is even a hint of humour in her voice as she describes how one of her jobs has been a "lackey" on her father-in-law's farm. Occasionally she hesitates to search her memory.

But the muscles in her cheeks tighten as the questions lead her to the Rotorua flat where, she alleges, the accused started visiting, uninvited and unannounced, using their physical presence and status to press an 18-year-old of some 47kg into sex against her will.

Her voice falters and wobbles. She keeps her eyes on Mr Stanaway's face.

Suddenly she is back in a Rotorua police house. Her composure cracks and her eyes are squeezed shut, head bowed, tears flowing. The words are rushing from her mouth as she recounts her version of events. How, as she thinks it is over, Shipton advances on her with a wooden police baton in one hand, a jar of Vaseline in the other, a "dirty smirk" on his face.

She protests, backs away, spits and swears like a cornered cat: there is no way he is using "that thing" on her. But he does, twice, she alleges. And then, she says, she just wants to die.

Justice Randerson calls for a few minutes' adjournment so Mrs Nicholas can collect herself.

And then, says Mrs Nicholas, Schollum drops her home with two words: "Sorry, Lou".

Rickards is staring at his paperwork. Schollum is busily writing notes. Shipton is shaking his head.