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Anger at the not guilty verdicts on sex charges for suspended Assistant Police Commissioner Clint Rickards and two former police officers has triggered vandalism at a court complex.
Red paint was splashed over glass doors at the entrance to the Christchurch District Court and a slogan questioning the verdict daubed in black paint on the grey concrete walls.
A small protest group representing Justice for Rape Survivors carried placards outside the entrance, but denied having anything to do with the vandalism.
A jury in the High Court in Auckland yesterday cleared Rickards and former policemen Bob Schollum and Brad Shipton of abducting and indecently assaulting a 16-year-old girl in Rotorua between November 1983 and August 1984.
Shipton and Schollum are already serving jail sentences for the rape of a Mt Maunganui woman. Rickards was not involved in that case. All three were last year cleared of raping Louise Nicholas.
Protest group spokeswoman Joanna Payne said she knew nothing about the graffiti attack until arriving at the court complex with three friends for an impromptu "symbolic" demonstration about 9am.
"I don't know anything about it, but I think it looks great," she said.
Ms Payne said she believed the court vandalism "reflected the broader view of the community" that yesterday's verdict was wrong.
"I've heard a lot of people say they feel strongly about what has happened and shock at the verdict... that it was not guilty," she said.
"I guess this is a symbol of that shock and that anger about the fact this was an unfair trial."
Ms Payne said Justice for Rape Survivors believed evidence relating to earlier court cases involving Mr Rickards, Schollum and Shipton should have been put before the jury in the latest trial.
Provisions in law would have allowed such "weighted evidence" to be introduced during the trial, she said.
She said her group had been involved in distributing pamphlets with court-suppressed details during the Louise Nicholas trial.
Police are investigating today's vandalism.
It is understood security cameras at the court captured an image of a man during the attack.
Rape Crisis - a separate organisation to the one protesting in Christchurch - today called for a change in the court system when it comes to rape cases.
The group's director of rape prevention and education Kim McGregor told Newstalk ZB the complainant in this case would be shattered by the result, after effectively having been put on trial herself.
There had to be a change from the adversarial system that pitted one person against another in terms of their credibility, she said.
Dr McGregor would like to see an inquisitorial form where both parties must answer questions in court.
- NZPA, NEWSTALK ZB, NZHERALD STAFF
