Police rape jury asks for judge's summing up

Clint Rickards

The jury in the police rape case has this morning asked the judge for a transcript of his summing up following almost a day of deliberation.

Justice Tony Randerson agreed to them seeing his legal direction but not the entire transcript.

The jury was continuing a second day of deliberations into the fate of former Assistant Commissioner Clint Rickards and two other former police officers.

The seven women and five men retired at 1pm yesterday at the High Court in Auckland to consider the case against Rickards, and former officers Bob Schollum and Brad Shipton.

They adjourned for the night at 10pm after asking several questions of Justice Randerson.

The judge had earlier told them their task was not easy, as there were effectively three trials running as one.

The three accused face 20 charges of rape, indecent assault and sexual violation against Louise Nicholas said to have occurred between 1985 and 1986 in Rotorua.

Lawyers for the three men have said the sex was consensual and that an alleged sexual attack with a police baton never took place.

After 2 hours the jury emerged to ask if they could have a whiteboard and take a break.

They also asked if police officers kept their own uniforms.

Justice Randerson referred them to evidence given by former sergeant Raymond Sutton, who told the court CIB officers were entitled to keep police uniforms and were encouraged to do so.

Mrs Nicholas has alleged Rickards and Shipton visited her at her flat for sex without her consent - sometimes wearing uniform and sometimes in plain clothes.

But the men's lawyers said during the trial that the men were plain-clothes detectives in the CIB at the time of the alleged offences and would not have been wearing uniform, as Mrs Nicholas had claimed.

The second question asked by the jury cannot be revealed because it would breach one of a number of suppression orders in place at the trial.

In a three-hour summing up yesterday, Justice Randerson said the jury had to decide if Mrs Nicholas was a credible and reliable witness or whether she genuinely believed she was truthful but might have been mistaken.

Justice Randerson said the men were only to be judged on evidence given in court and were entitled to any doubt in the jurors' minds.

"If you have a reasonable doubt that leaves you feeling unsure then you must acquit."

The fact that the allegations were first made in 1993 could have been for any number of reasons, he said.

The evidence of a flatmate who said she had seen Mrs Nicholas having sex with the officers in one location, if found to be credible, could have a bearing on Mrs Nicholas' credibility in her evidence about alleged offences in another location.

The jurors were told it was not their job to judge the morality of what the men had done.

"Whatever view you may have about the morality of their behaviour must be put to one side. This court is not concerned with the morality of their behaviour."

It would be wrong for the jury to take into account any material they may have seen or heard other than what had been presented in court.