KEY POINTS:
Police gave rogue cop John Buchanan Dewar an estimated $250,000-plus payout when he left the force, despite his being dogged by allegations of wrongdoing.
Police have confirmed Dewar was under investigation for over-claiming on travel expenses when he "perfed" from the force in 1999 - a somewhat minor misdemeanour among a catalogue of manipulative acts in his 25-year career.
He was able to stay in the job despite suspicions of covering up Louise Nicholas' rape allegations; aborting High Court trials; a botched investigation; an internal disciplinary finding over a sexist remark and a management style that divided the Rotorua police station.
Dewar got away with so much that other officers called him "Teflon".
This week, something finally stuck. He was convicted in the High Court at Hamilton of covering up Mrs Nicholas' original rape allegations against Brad Shipton, Bob Schollum and suspended assistant police commissioner Clint Rickards.
He faces seven years in jail for each of four charges of obstructing the course of justice in a case of police corruption that is without comparison in local history.
Police yesterday confirmed Dewar took "early retirement" under the Police Employment Rehabilitation Fund - a payout other officers estimated would be worth $250,000 to $350,000 given his years in the force.
Detective Inspector Dewar turned heads the minute he transferred from Auckland to Rotorua in 1987, driving to his new job in a cream-and-brown Rolls-Royce.
Almost everybody in the police had heard of the Roller, said to be a present from the parents of his first wife for rescuing her from the clutches of the Moonies religious sect in the United States.
Shipton, Schollum and Mr Rickards were all working at the station and had already been involved in a sexual relationship with Mrs Nicholas, then Louise Crawford.
Dewar was the station's top detective and head of the armed offenders squad with a divide-and-rule management style. Shipton and he became close, allegedly having group sex with a Rotorua woman who has name suppression.
An early pointer to the Nicholas debacle was an unrelated case involving rape accusations against a police officer. Dewar charged the officer but his bungling of the case resulted in a substantial payout for the man and the possibility of the police being sued for malicious prosecution. Although the officer was cleared in court, he died soon afterwards - his widow attributing his death to the stress caused by Dewar. A police report into the matter savaged Dewar's handling of the case.
Dewar met Mrs Nicholas in 1993 when she laid rape allegations against an officer who cannot be named. She also told him Shipton, Schollum and Mr Rickards had sexually assaulted her and had used a baton on her. However, he never acted properly on the claims, if at all.
He did investigate the unnamed officer - which the Crown described as the "sacrificial lamb" - then inexplicably aborted two trials by giving inadmissible hearsay evidence. The man was acquitted at a third trial.
The reason for covering up for his friends has never been explained but the Operation Austin team - set up in 2004 after Mrs Nicholas went public with her allegations - considered charging all four with conspiracy.
Crown Prosecutor Brent Stanaway told the jury in Dewar's trial that he had covered it up "because Shipton had something over him".
An internal disciplinary finding at Rotorua also found Dewar had insulted a detective constable, asking her, "Are you bonking one of the bosses or something?"
He was shifted to a desk job in Auckland, where the allegations of over-claiming on travel expenses surfaced.
After perfing in 1999, Dewar became human relations manager for the St John Ambulance Midland region (Waikato) - using a verbal reference from Mr Rickards, then Waikato police district commander.
He was divisive there too, with staff sending a letter to board members saying most were looking for work elsewhere, while others were being "hounded, harassed and victimised by Dewar".
The organisation was "in grave danger of being exposed externally to the serious detriment of its reputation". Those concerns blew up in spectacular fashion several months later when Mrs Nicholas went public with her allegations of pack rape and its cover-up by Dewar.
Dewar initially went on nine months' special leave, on full pay of $100,000 a year, but his employment relationship soured on his return to work when St John placed restrictions on his role.
He lost a personal grievance case and had to pay the organisation almost $10,000 in costs.
Even with Mrs Nicholas' allegations out in the open, Dewar continued to try to manipulate his way out of it, handing a Herald reporter a fake letter praising his handling of the case.
Operation Austin head Detective Superintendent Nick Perry said 75 per cent of the evidence used to convict Dewar was already there. It was uncovered in 1995, through an internal investigation by Detective Chief Inspector Rex Miller.
Mr Perry, a police veteran, had been on the former anti-terrorist group with Dewar and knew him by reputation as a competent investigator but was "astounded" at how he had acted in the Nicholas case. On a scale of police corruption, Mr Perry said it stood out on its own.
Police Commissioner Howard Broad said Dewar's "unacceptable" conduct "drove right to the heart of police core values [of] integrity and professionalism". Dewar's enemies did not want to give their views on him publicly for fear of his vindictiveness. "He is quite simply an absolute bloody maniac," said one former officer.
John Buchanan Dewar, rogue cop, is now a convicted criminal facing jail.
