Too many flaws in Nicholas case, say defence lawyers

Louise Nicholas accuses the three of rape, indecent assault and sexual violation. Sandra Mu / Getty Images

Holes in the Crown case against Assistant Commissioner Clint Rickards and two former police colleagues are too great for any jury to convict the men, the High Court at Auckland was told yesterday.

Lawyers for Rickards, 45, Brad Shipton, 47, and Bob Schollum, 53, gave their closing addresses to the jury of seven women and five men, saying the complainant, Louise Nicholas, had lied and fabricated events and the Crown case did not come within a "bull's roar" of what was required.

The jurors will retire today to consider their verdicts.

Rickards' lawyer, John Haigh, QC, told the jury the case the Crown had presented was not enough to convict anyone.

Mrs Nicholas was courting attention for a past of which she was ashamed, he said.

"If these allegations are indeed true then Mrs Nicholas must be a hauntingly tragic figure."

Between them the three men face 20 charges of rape, indecent assault and sexual violation of Mrs Nicholas.

She alleges Shipton and Rickards visited her Rotorua flat uninvited for sex she did not consent to between September 1985 and January 1986.

She alleges all three men took turns at raping her and then indecently assaulted her with a police baton at a police house in January 1986.

Mr Haigh said Mrs Nicholas had courted publicity in the case, waiving the right to name suppression given to all complainants in sex cases.

"She chose to have her name here, to have her name splattered all over the media."

Flaws in the Crown case emerged if the jury asked why she allowed the abuse to continue at her flat after the incident at the police house in Rutland St, Mr Haigh said. "Rutland St is so gross that if it is true it would be an abomination."

He said all she offered was, "No, guys, I don't want this."

"She doesn't speak out, she doesn't shout, she doesn't push, she doesn't run. Is that common sense? Can you write that off as saying poor Mrs Nicholas had lost control?"

Mr Haigh asked why she had not complained to anyone at the time, when she had already made a previous complaint against a police officer to her mother, who tried to do something about it.

"It was the simplest thing in the world," he said. "What loss of control prevents you from saying, 'Mum, this happened to me'?"

Mr Haigh said Rutland St was a fabrication and questioned why Mrs Nicholas continued wearing the dress she said she had on that day years after the incident.

"Would you not think forever this dress would be contaminated? It was a memento, if you like, of the most ghastly moment of her life."

Evidence that Rickards was never in uniform, as Mrs Nicholas had suggested, because he was a plain-clothes detective at the time could not be ignored, he said.

Evidence given by her former flatmate who said she had sex with Shipton and Schollum and had seen Mrs Nicholas having sex with them did not come "within a bull's roar" of the Crown case.

"Doesn't that knock Mrs Nicholas out of the ring because she says [her flatmate] was never there. If it wasn't so tragically serious you could describe it as laughable."

Rickards' achievements in the police were to be admired and his work was impeccable, he said.

Rickards conceded he had consensual sex with Mrs Nicholas twice and while that might have been morally reprehensible, it was not criminal.

"She consented and he reasonably believed she was consenting."

Bill Nabney, for Shipton, said his case was on two fronts: Shipton admitted having consensual sex with Mrs Nicholas and Rutland St simply did not occur.

He said the trial was not about a married man having extra-marital sex with a young woman. "It's a bunch of people having fun."

The evidence of Mrs Nicholas' flatmate showed that, he said.

Paul Mabey, QC, for Schollum, said the evidence in the case was just not good enough. Mrs Nicholas had created a fantasy and told lies.

Evidence was presented which proved that Schollum was not driving a Triumph at the time, as Mrs Nicholas claimed when she said she had been picked up by him and taken to Rutland St.

Her claims that she made a solemn promise to her brother Peter that she would be civil to Schollum at his wedding in February 1993 were untrue.

In his evidence he said he knew nothing of her allegations.

Instead, Mr Mabey said, she had flashed her leg to Schollum during wedding photos.

The court was not for judging morality, he said.

He asked the jurors to write "Are you sure?" on a white board before they started deliberating.

Justice Tony Randerson will sum up the case for the jury this morning.