KEY POINTS:
Former policeman Brad Shipton gave the nickname "milk bottle" to the woman he allegedly sexually violated with a bottle - but this was kept secret from the jury that acquitted him.
The nickname was ruled to be irrelevant and likely to ruin his chance of a fair trial, even though it was what led detectives to a second Rotorua woman who said she was victim of a pack sex-attack by Shipton, Clint Rickards and Bob Schollum in the 1980s.
The detectives were alerted when they saw "milk bottle" scribbled next to a five-digit phone number in a old police notebook of Shipton's seized during their investigations of the Louise Nicholas rape allegations.
They traced the woman who said she had been in a consensual sexual relationship with the married police officer Shipton when she was 16 that turned nasty when she wouldn't let his friend Schollum join in.
The woman, who has name suppression, described arriving at a Rotorua house and being dragged into a room where Shipton straddled her as Schollum stood on one side and Mr Rickards on the other.
She said she was violated by something that felt like a bottle, and although she couldn't see it, thought it to be a whisky bottle they were drinking from.
The trio were acquitted of kidnapping and indecently assaulting the woman, after a trial in the High Court at Auckland nine days ago.
The Weekend Herald can reveal the reference to a milk bottle was suppressed by Justice Tony Randerson in a pre-trial ruling because it had "minimal probative value", was a "speculative" link and would be "seriously prejudicial".
The "milk bottle" nickname was found in a notebook from 1986, while the woman alleged the incidenthappened in the early months of 1984.
Crown prosecutor Brent Stanaway said the reference was relevant because it was what led detectives to the woman, and was circumstantial evidence Shipton was involved in a bottle incident.
He said Shipton was known to use a form of code with his phone numbers.
Shipton's lawyer Bill Nabney argued that the reference and alleged attack were too remote in time, and that there was a distinction between a whisky and a milk bottle.
The Crown was able to refer to the notebooks in general at the trial after Shipton reneged on a deal where he would admit to having had a sexual relationship with the woman in exchange for having them suppressed.
Mr Stanaway told the jury the continued reference showed Shipton "keeping track of his liabilities" with a woman noted down as "somebody who might come out of his past".
The juries in the latest trial and at that for the Louise Nicholas allegations were unaware that Shipton and Schollum were convicted of the pack rape of a 20-year-old woman at Mt Maunganui in 1989 after a trial in 2005. She alleged that they violated her with a police baton but they were acquitted of that charge.
Shipton, Schollum and Mr Rickards were acquitted of all 20 charges, including rape, after the Nicholas trial. Mrs Nicholas, aged 18 when the offences were said to have occurred between 1985 and 1986, also alleged that a baton was used on her.
