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A court was told today that a former top policeman said his actions in causing the trial of a policeman accused of sexual offences against Louise Nicholas to be aborted was because he wanted to "get the game back on a level playing field".
Former Rotorua CIB head John Dewar, 55, has denied four counts of attempting to obstruct or defeat the course of justice in relation to claims by Mrs Nicholas of sexual offending by police in the 1980s.
The jury in the High Court at Hamilton today heard details of how Dewar gave inadmissable evidence in the 1993 Rotorua District Court trial of a police officer charged with sex offences against Mrs Nicholas in Murupara.
Judge David McDonald who acted as crown prosecutor in the trial, said he was initially surprised at the lack of information in the prosecution file passed on to him by Dewar, the officer in charge of the investigation.
"It didn't have a lot of information in it.
"I would have thought a few more people who had been at Murupara might have been spoken to," the judge said.
When Dewar gave evidence in the trial he told the court of another police officer who had said he would lie to help the accused.
Judge McDonald said the evidence caused "grave problems", and he was not surprised the trial was subsequently aborted.
"It was hearsay, and what were the jury to make of that comment?
"The moment it was said, I knew what was going to happen."
When Judge McDonald later asked Dewar why he had given that evidence he told him he wanted to "get the game back on a level playing field."
When Dewar also caused the second trial to be aborted, this time by telling the court of allegations into sexual offending against Mrs Nicholas by Clint Rickards, Brad Shipton and Bob Schollum, Judge McDonald said he became angry, both at the mistrial and Dewar's reaction to it.
"I was extremely angry that this had occured again, almost at an identical part of the trial.
"His (Dewar's) reaction was cavalier, along the lines of "these things happen, you shouldn't get upset about it"'.
Judge McDonald said he asked Dewar for a written report explaining his actions.
- NZPA
