KEY POINTS:
Louise Nicholas, whose rape allegations against high-profile police officers led to a series of court trials, is urging rape victims to speak out.
The 39-year-old Rotorua mother of four, travelling the country promoting her book, Louise Nicholas: My Story, spoke at Auckland Girls' Grammar School last night.
The 150-strong crowd of mostly women stood to applaud her as she entered the school's theatre.
She told of the trauma she went through during the five trials and two deposition hearings.
Released on Monday, the book was co-written by investigative journalist Philip Kitchin, who brought the historic sex allegations against a small band of Bay of Plenty police officers into the open.
Kitchin was there in support last night, with MP Judith Tizard, relatives of Mrs Nicholas, lawyers, councillors and rape organisation representatives.
Mrs Nicholas says she wants to "set the record straight" with her book by correcting the mistaken impressions some members of the public hold of her.
She told last night how her "fight for survival" started when she was raped at 13 by a policeman in Murupara and how at 14 she had tried to commit suicide.
"I was taught that if you respect the law then you would go a long way. I did but I was still punished. For a very, very long time ... "
But now, with the support of a loving husband, she feels she can learn to live with her ordeal.
"Over the last four years I have grown so much as a person ... the relief to know I don't cringe any more when I see a cop car is a huge step."
She believes she is an advocate for rape victims. "I knew I wasn't the only victim of rape. If I could get more victims to come forward then the injustices throughout those years were worth it."
She had a list a "mile long" of changes she would like to see in the New Zealand legal system.
But the final chapter of the Louise Nicholas story has still to be written.
Soon after the book was finished the news came that two men, suspended assistant police commissioner Clint Rickards and convicted former Rotorua CIB head John Dewar, were to lay complaints of perjury against her.
* See Friday's Herald for a review of Louis Nicholas' book (not Thursday as earlier stated).
