KEY POINTS:
If the wind's blowing the right way, you first collide with the smell as you thread your way down State Highway One through the southern slopes of the Mamakus.
Odd, isn't it, that a tourist town can almost bask in something as odious as the stench of rotten eggs. But that's Rotorua - Sulphur City - a city famous for a stink that's been there forever but which is notorious now for another kind of stench.
With more than 200 submissions, the long-awaited commission of inquiry report into police conduct by Dame Margaret Bazely, due for release shortly, is expected to confirm what some have suspected all along - that Rotorua in the 1980s was a Wild West town with a sick police culture.
The Bazely report was ordered by the Government in February 2004 following allegations by Rotorua woman Louise Nicholas she was gang-raped in the 1980s by three officers.
Legal wrangling has delayed the commission's report six times, but it is expected to be with Governor-General Anand Satyanand by March 30.
So was Rotorua 20 years ago simply a tough town needing strong, no-nonsense cops to keep the peace? Or, as Nicholas would argue, was it infiltrated then by men with no regard for the uniform who acted like thugs and treated women like animals?
Men like Brad Shipton and Bob Schollum who are now serving jail time for the rape and kidnapping of a Mt Maunganui woman in 1986.
Some police veterans will say Rotorua was no different to anywhere else, and that talk of a lawless police culture in the 80s is rubbish. But others acknowledge that tough towns bred and attracted tough cops, and that some Rotorua officers turned as rotten as the smell of the town.
Many of those who talk about the bad apples in Rotorua's police force are women now in their 40s and 50s, who grimace at the memories of nights out with officers when they were impressionable young girls. One of those women is Juliette, a children's nurse who spent time hanging out with those policemen and a girlfriend in Rotorua in the mid-80s.
Suggest to Juliette that Rotorua's cops were tough but decent, and she will tell you about the police epaulette she has hidden away.
It's a reminder of a brief time in her life she wishes she could forget - of the night, she says, she was handcuffed and raped by a police officer, a man she admits she liked but wasn't ready for sex with. They had met at a nightclub a few days earlier, and on the night she claims she was raped, she had accepted his offer to stay the night at his house.
"I had been drinking and couldn't drive, and he assured me there was another bed in the house for me. But it didn't turn out that way.
"Even now I struggle to talk about it. It's as clear as it was yesterday. I remember his face, all red and winced up over me as I am screaming at the top of my lungs for him to stop. This went on for 15 minutes but it seemed forever. I had bruises all over me from where he pulled me and grabbed me."
After the handcuffs were removed, Juliette says she ran from the house to her car, taking with her the officer's epaulette so one day - when she was finally ready - she could find out his identity. That day, she promises, will come soon.
Although it has taken her this long to come forward, Juliette's story is a convincing one. Twenty years on she still remembers dates, times, locations - even the type of pantyhose she was wearing the night she claims she was raped. She never reported the rape to police because she didn't think she'd ever be believed.
She now lives in the United States, and only last week became aware of the commission of inquiry into police conduct.
But like many historical sexual abuse cases, establishing credibility and distinguishing fact from fiction is never easy, especially as time passes and memories fade.
With many historical sex complaints, the truth about what really happened probably lies somewhere in between.
As "Petra", the daughter of one former Rotorua cop, told the Herald on Sunday last week:
"There was a subculture of group sex, wife swapping, and other deviant sexual behaviour within the police force at the time.
"But there were also 'police groupies' who would compete to see who could bed the most cops."
Most of the action went down at the now-closed Police Club, with a reputation of hosting the best parties in town where beer was cheap and often sex was on tap.
Later some women, embarrassed by their behaviour, would claim they were raped. It was a convenient excuse, says Petra.
Juliette agrees that may well be the case, but it was a culture of immorality that was allowed to flourish.
She had spent a week on holiday in Rotorua in 1987 and had met several police officers - spending time at the station with them.
She recalls one morning hearing officers bragging about how many "girls" they had "bagged and tagged".
"They never referred to them as women as they were generally underage, which was a huge kick to them," she said.
One senior officer, she recalled, took great stock in telling colleagues how he had "banged a 15-year-old in the back of a police car".
"The other officers were cheering him on while I sat there horrified.
"I was a nurse who often worked in the children's ward in an Auckland hospital, so to hear young girls being abused like this was outrageous."
A former partner of the complainant in the most recent rape case against Shipton Schollum and Clint Rickards also remembers seeing evidence of the "rotten police culture" that existed in Rotorua in the 80s.
He was a regular at the Rotorua Cobb and Co, a favourite police haunt, and often would see police officers trying to solicit sex from under-age girls. "It was common knowledge back then these guys were taking advantage of young girls. We all knew it went on."
Former Rotorua senior sergeant Mike Campbell told the Herald on Sunday that in the 80s officers had to be tough - but that didn't mean they weren't decent men.
Police work was stressful and dangerous, he said, and occasionally it took its toll on rookie cops keen to make their mark in the macho world of law enforcement.
"But overall I'd have to say it was a culture typical of the 80s rather than a culture just confined to the police."
Police were often run off their feet dealing with gang conflict and a whole town that seemed "liquored up".
"New recruits were told never to drive their police cars past the Palace Hotel before 1am otherwise they'd have their vehicles bottled. I did one night - and that's exactly what happened."
Some, like no-nonsense former Rotorua chief superintendent Pat Revell, also reject suggestions of a sick police culture.
He only has fond memories of the 12 years he spent in charge of Rotorua's police district.
The actions of Shipton and Schollum were naturally a disappointment, he told the Herald on Sunday last week, but Rotorua was no different in the 80s to any other provincial city of the time.
His "smallish team" of 30 police officers and 20-odd CIB staff worked hard and there was nothing wrong with unwinding with a beer at the end of the day.
"There was no police culture, as such. Apart from a couple of isolated incidents, there were really no problems," he said.
"We dealt with most of the challenges. We were a reasonably close bunch. I can tell you this sort of behaviour certainly we've been reading about wasn't widespread.
"There was nothing to be concerned about. We had a lot of young guys from police college and they never gave us any problems."
Speak to ex-Rotorua police officer Graham Bell and you'll get the same story.
"Sure there were stray rooters and tomcatters, but no more so than in any other profession. There was certainly nothing unique about Rotorua."
But former top-ranking police officer Ian Miller, who worked as national manager of police psychological services between 1985 and 1992, said the service had been aware for some time of "problems concerning some individuals in Rotorua in the 80s".
But that said, he didn't believe those problems were a direct result of the pressures of being stationed there.
Most Rotorua officers from that era were attracted to the job by "a high sense of duty and the chance to protect and serve".
Women and sex followed, but that was more because of the "minor celebrity status of police officers then and the fact they were fit, healthy young men with money".
Yes, there was a degree of machoism, but no more so than with any of the other emergency services.
He said it was difficult to pinpoint why some officers went off the rails. For some it could have been a reaction to a particular management style, while for others it could have been "deeper issues within" or the fact they were never suited to the job in the first place.
One of the issues perhaps that had given rise to some of the problems was "the boredom factor" .
"Some were given too much freedom and that created some issues for police," he said.
"There's not a one-size-fits-all cop. Yes, it's exciting, demanding work, but it can eventually take it toll on people," Miller said.
"Overall, police were pretty well behaved. Sure, there were girls and some drinking, but nothing like what some people are suggesting."
Bob Thompson worked as a jailer for the police in Rotorua in the 80s and said talk of a culture of bent cops was garbage.
There were a lot of "decent young cops" in Rotorua at the time as well as senior officers like Rickards who were tailormade for the job as they excelled dealing with "the rugged gang world".
"This talk of police corruption and coverups is just not on. Cops in Rotorua back then were tough. They had to be otherwise they wouldn't have survived.
"With the profile of the job came a degree of female attention. But there was never any of the shenanigans they're speaking of.
"A lot of the young girls loved the men in uniform. And they were there to have a good time. That was it."
Historical Rotorua rape charges not the first
Police Commander Clint Rickards and former cops Brad Shipton and Bob Schollum aren't the only police officers who served in Rotorua to answer historical sex charges.
In 1995 former Rotorua senior sergeant Evan Jordon was accused of wilfully attempting to pervert the course of justice and improperly using his position as a police officer six years earlier to coerce the complainant into having sex. Details of the case resurfaced after Rickards, Shipton and Schollum were acquitted on charges of kidnapping and indecent assault of a 16-year-old girl more than 20 years ago. Last year they were acquitted of sex charges against Rotorua woman Louise Nicholas.
Shipton and Schollum are in prison for the rape of a Mt Maunganui woman 18 years ago, but this was not revealed to the jury in the latest case.
In the Jordon case the complainant was discredited by the defence team who revealed she was an alcoholic, had a long history of fraud and was "highly strung". She also admitted that the sex between her and Jordon had been consensual. The woman, who has permanent name suppression, had a history of making "expansive" complaints about Rotorua officers.
However, despite questions over her credibility, the prosecution went ahead. But it never went to trial after a ruling by Justice Morris that the complainant could not be relied on to tell the truth.
Jordon's lawyer at the time, Peter Williams QC, told the Herald on Sunday the case was full of holes and charges should never had been laid.
Williams believed the stress of the prosecution killed Jordon. He died two years after the 1995 acquittal. "He was a very popular police officer and this killed him. It was very sad."
