41 FOR THE RECORD

Woman’s false-evidence actions earn 50 hours’ service

03 November 2008

A Waikato woman’s gathering of false evidence against her abusive former partner led to the man’s conviction for rape being quashed.

But police say the woman’s allegations were legitimate and will not charge her with making a false complaint. The 61-year-old invalid beneficiary appeared in the Hamilton District Court for sentencing on Friday after earlier admitting to attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Judge Denise Clark sentenced her to 50 hours’ community work.

The court heard that the woman and her ex-partner had a turbulent de-facto relationship for several years. A protection order taken out against the man was breached three times.

After the relationship ended, the woman alleged the man had assaulted and sexually violated her. Subsequently, in the Rotorua District Court, he was found guilty of rape.

Crown prosecutor Sheila Cameron said the woman gathered false evidence and had tried to influence two women to lie at her ex-partner’s trial. But the false information never formed any part of the trial evidence.

The Court of Appeal said the woman’s actions struck at the core of the Crown case. It quashed the man’s convictions and he was released after serving 10 months in prison.

Crown prosecutors declined to pursue a retrial. Ms Cameron said police re-investigated and were satisfied the woman had not made any false complaints. There was an evidential basis for charges against the man.

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New evidence in cold case murder

05 October 2008

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS: Ten years after the murder of Kirsty Bentley there are calls for a review of the police investigation with allegations that significant leads were not followed up.

Ten years after 15-year-old Ashburton girl Kirsty Bentley was murdered, there are calls for a review of the police investigation with allegations significant leads were never followed up. Donna Chisholm reports.

Police investigating the murder of Ashburton teenager Kirsty Bentley refused to inspect a green Commer van abandoned in a paddock 30km from the spot her body was found despite months of calling for sightings of such a vehicle.

A Christchurch mechanic who photographed the van in 1999 and 2005 in a field on Ashburton Gorge Rd, past Mt Somers township and took Kirsty’s father, Sid, to the site to see it has spoken publicly of his find for the first time.

The man, who wants to remain anonymous, sent the photos to author Bryan Bruce, who fronts TVNZ’s The Investigator, a series which featured the Bentley murder last November.

Now Bruce is calling for a review of the police inquiry into Kirsty’s death, claiming investigators had “tunnel vision”.

But the officer in charge of the case, Detective Inspector Greg Williams, says he was able to rule out the van based on the photographs because it was not the model sought, saying the original witness who saw the van near where Kirsty went missing in Ashburton had worked on Commer vans and gave a very clear and specific description. “He took particular note of it because it was a very rare Series 1 van. What you have to do with vehicles is be very careful and specific about what we’re looking for and that’s like thousands of other vehicles sent into us, the bulk we could immediately eliminate as soon as we saw the photos.”

But Bruce says the fact his informant’s van was green, a Commer, and was so close to the place where Kirsty’s body was found in the Rakaia Gorge, meant “I would have thought it was worth a bit more effort than a dismissal on the basis of the photographs”.

The Commer van being sought was said to have no side windows, but the van in the paddock had windows behind the driver’s seat covered with green tin, which could have given the impression of no windows.

The witness who came to Bruce had two possible sightings of vehicles of interest in the Bentley case. The first was a Ford, which he saw, also in the Ashburton Gorge Rd area, on New Year’s Day, 1999 the day after Kirsty’s disappearance but before her body had been found.

Police later said they were interested in sightings of a 1977 Ford Fairmont, with mottled blue spray-paint over the original white, seen in Ashburton and Rakaia around the time Kirsty disappeared and later seized from a house in Rakaia.

The man said he and his family had been holidaying in Geraldine and were on the Ashburton Gorge Rd heading towards Erewhon when they were forced to a stop by a Ford parked awkwardly in their path. The vehicle had two occupants: the driver, who was blonde and had “surfie-type hair”, and a blonde girl matching Kirsty’s description, who appeared to be cowering towards the front passenger door “as if she wanted to get out”.

The driver wouldn’t look at them but there was no other evidence the girl was in any distress, and the family drove on, but the incident stayed in their minds.

It wasn’t until several days later, when they were in Nelson, that they saw reports about Kirsty’s disappearance and mockups of the Ford being sought. They contacted local police.

When they hadn’t heard back several months later, they phoned Christchurch police who said their statement had been lost. They were re-interviewed but again never heard back. Perturbed, they contacted Kirsty’s mother, Jill, who called police. As a result, the man said, police called them and “gave us a bollocking” for contacting Jill Bentley.

The following year, when they were holidaying in the same area, the man went back to the spot and tried to establish where the car could have come from. About 2km from the place where he had seen the Ford, he saw the green Commer van in a nearby paddock and photographed it.

Because his family had been “treated like idiots” by the police, he did not send the photo to police but a few years later contacted Sid Bentley and took him to the same place where Bentley himself spotted the van and burst into tears.

An intermediary Bentley spoke to then contacted the man and sent the photographs to police, who ruled them out. The property it was on is thought to have been sold and the van is no longer there, says Bruce. But the man says he’s convinced both his sightings were important. “All of us would say to the day we die that was Kirsty in the car and he was the murderer.”

TIMELINE

july 1999: Operation Kirsty police say they are focusing inquiries on the sighting of an unidentified girl walking a black labrador towards a green Commer van on December 31, 1998 the day Kirsty Bentley disappeared from Chalmers Ave, Ashburton.

August 1999: A mechanic reports seeing a green Commer van driving slowly down Chalmers Ave about 3.40pm.The mechanic took special note of the van because he did his apprenticeship on Commer vans. The sighting was about 200m from where Kirsty’s dog and some of her clothing were found. The van was said to be painted the standard mid-green in which the vans were produced. It had a distinctive red badge on the front with “Commer” inserted in it. The Series 1 vans, manufactured in 1960 and 1961, also had three distinctive chrome strips on the front, just below the badge. The witness confirmed there were no side windows behind the driver’s door. Police said about 27 Series 1 Commer vans were registered or recently deregistered in New Zealand, but only three were believed to be green.

September 1999: Police say the woman near the Commer van was not Kirsty.

December 1999: Police announce the van is still central to their inquiries.

October 2002: Police say they will look again at a green Commer van owned by Teresa Cormack’s killer, Jules Mikus, in 1998 and sighted on the West Coast being driven by a man who looked like Mikus. It is later ruled out.

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Abused doctor gets justice but hits out at police inaction

05 October 2008

A GP WHO was hit and kicked by her husband - a prominent public servant - says she is appalled the court which convicted him on Friday has suppressed his occupation.

Adrian Hilterman, 55, was convicted on Friday of kicking and hitting Deborah Hilterman, his wife of 10 years.

When lawyers for Fairfax New Zealand last month challenged an earlier order which banned publication of his name, address and occupation, Judge Robert Spear lifted the ban on all but his job. He has indicated the final suppression will be lifted at sentencing.

A jury acquitted Adrian Hilterman of 10 charges but convicted him of two assault counts from last June when he lashed out at her, giving her a black eye and kicking her in the perineal area.

Deborah Hilterman, a doctor who worked for the police and specialised in sex abuse cases, claims the convictions come after years of police inaction because of her husband’s prominent position in the community.

“I just wish they would have helped. It was 10 times more difficult for me because of who he was.”

A spokeswoman for police headquarters declined to comment.

Some of the charges Hilterman was acquitted of included allegations he chased her around the house with a filleting knife, dragged her around the room by her hair and pushed her when she was 37 weeks’ pregnant, forcing an emergency caesarean.

The allegations date back to 1998. Deborah Hilterman says she had “informally” made contact with police as early as 2001 about the abuse.

The following year she met senior officers current Counties Manukau district commander Superintendent Mike Bush and police commissioner in the Cook Islands Pat Tasker, to discuss the abuse.

“They said, `You’re typical of a domestic violence victim’. And you’ve got kids under three in the house exposed to violence.’

“Tasker said, `I can’t stress enough that the line has now been drawn in the sand. If you ring police again Adrian will get locked up’.”

Despite the fact she worked as a police doctor, she couldn’t summon up the will to leave her husband. She says that in a way, living without him was worse than being in the abusive relationship. She was frightened at the thought of her husband losing his job and wanted to make the marriage work.

She managed to cope with the abuse by “disassociating” from the situation, reading a lot about abuse and trying to understand it from a medical perspective.

Over the years her only support was a network of friends, her family and work colleagues she would confide in.

In August last year the marriage finally fell apart when Hilterman had marital possessions changed to his name and refused his wife access to his salary. When he finally left she sat by the phone for four hours pondering whether to make a formal complaint to police, she says. He was charged shortly afterwards.

A protection order was subsequently taken out against Hilterman, one she says he breached. She said police cited lack of evidence.

Police eventually upheld a breach but she says she was only notified 13 months later.

Police then told her that the time limit for prosecuting a breach of protection order was six months and her time had lapsed.

She says she wants to speak out for women in abusive relationships and is holding out for Hilterman’s suppression to be lifted at sentencing later this year.

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Rugby star accused of bashing killer

23 August 2008

A former Hurricanes prop has been charged with kidnapping a notorious murderer, beating him unconscious at gunpoint and torching his car before leaving him for dead.

Mike Edwards, 38, is facing charges for the attack on Michael John Sneller - a man who served a life sentence for what was once described as “a classic gangland burglary, beating and killing”.

The identities of the accused and the murderer had been suppressed but can now be revealed after The Dominion Post successfully challenged those orders.

Sneller, 63, has told police he went to meet someone in Stokes Valley, Lower Hutt, about 10pm on February 5 and was beaten with a shotgun before being dumped, unconscious and severely injured, in a stolen station wagon.

He was able to escape at daybreak and was admitted to hospital with severe facial fractures.

Edwards, who played prop for the Hurricanes and Wellington representative sides, had a playing weight of about 110 kilograms.

He is charged with kidnapping, grievous bodily harm, arson, using a firearm, robbery and the theft of Sneller’s car, cellphone and wallet.

Edwards’ lawyer, Paul Surridge, has indicated he will deny the charges and has told the court his client has no previous convictions for violence. Edwards has spent time in custody but is now on bail.

The officer in charge of the case, Detective Sergeant Brendan Mears, said police would thoroughly investigate any serious crime, no matter who the alleged victim or accused were.

Edwards, who was nicknamed “Tyson”, played more than 100 first-class games including 11 for the Hurricanes and 81 for Wellington. In 2001 the Wellington Rugby Union disciplinary tribunal suspended him for six weeks after he admitted biting a player’s arm. He claimed it was in self-defence.

Earlier this month, Sneller was returned to prison, jailed for 5 1/2 years for supplying methamphetamine and having the drug for supply.

Sneller served a life sentence for the 1983 murder of Lower Hutt businessman Robert Cancian. He and an accomplice had gone to rob Mr Cancian of $16,000 of jewellery and beat him to death in his home with a softball bat.

It was the first case in New Zealand in which witnesses had to be protected by police.

Sneller was freed after 11 years, but in 1998 the Parole Board recalled him to serve the rest of his sentence after he was convicted on drug charges. He was released again in 2001.

In 2006, police charged him with more drug offences. Corrections head office was contacted about recalling him to serve his life sentence on the grounds he had committed a crime and was a risk to the community, but there was no response. Sneller remained on bail till after the attack.

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Driver’s defence: bourbon and beer

August 16, 2008

A man has had his drink-driving charge dismissed after he told a judge he downed three double shots of bourbon and a beer at home in the 15 minutes after he stopped driving.

Wayne Leigh Holland was acquitted of driving with excess breath alcohol after the Manukau District Court found police could not prove he had been drinking before he got into the car.

But the police appealed to the High Court against the decision, and the court ruled this week that the case must be tried again.

Holland was spotted by the crew of the police Eagle helicopter when he had a minor collision at an intersection near his Otahuhu home.

Police watched from the air as he turned into his driveway, got out of the car and walked into his garage.

Holland yesterday told the Weekend Herald he thought it was odd when the police helicopter shone its lights on him and his friends, who were having a few drinks outside.

“I didn’t even think that they were chasing us … By that stage I’d had two double shots and still had a beer in my hand when the cops showed up.”

The officers breath-tested Holland. He failed.

A second test, taken at the Otahuhu police station about 40 minutes after he had stopped driving, returned a result of 656 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath.

The legal limit is 400mcg.

Holland, and a witness who was in the car with him, told Judge Andree Wiltens that Holland had drunk no alcohol before he got in the vehicle.

Holland also disputes he was involved in a collision.

“I was a bit disappointed in the court case because the judge thought I’d hit another car,” he said.

“It was a sneaky manoeuvre. The cops were saying I hit this other car, but I told them there wasn’t any damage to it and I hadn’t had an accident.”

Judge Wiltens said Holland’s story was doubtful, but he could find no evidence on which to convict him.

Justice John Priestley summarised Judge Wilten’s problem in his decision this week. “The judge was of the view that he had ‘absolutely no doubt’ that [Holland] had consumed alcohol before he was driving, but he was unable to say what the proper breath-alcohol level might have been at the time of the driving concerned.”

Holland had said in his evidence that he drank three double shots of spirits and had started a beer before the police arrived.

Justice Priestley over-ruled Judge Wilten’s ruling, and sent the case back to the Manukau District Court.

In his judgment, Justice Priestley said it would be a problem for the police if a driver could avoid a drink-drive conviction by drinking alcohol immediately before a breath test.

Holland is resigned to having to go back to court, but is sticking with his story.

“If I had the money I would appeal … I’d get a test to see if you can get up to 560 micrograms in 20 minutes. I hadn’t been eating and they reckon you can get up to that on a six pack.”

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Judge finds a flaw in the law

15 August 2008

The High Court has put a block on the police practice of making drink-drivers pay for a doctor to take their blood samples.

The ruling by Justice Christine French is a win for Christchurch barrister Andrew Bailey and may mean urgent changes are needed to legislation, the Christchurch Court News website reported.

Bailey’s client was convicted in the District Court of drink-driving in March. He was fined $600 and ordered to pay court costs of $130, medical expenses of $102.60 and an analyst fee of $93, and disqualified from driving for six months.

Bailey took an appeal to the High Court over whether the District Court judge had jurisdiction to order payment of the medical expenses.

The order to pay medical expenses has been routinely imposed all over the country for many years.

“There was some argument before me as to whether it was fair and reasonable for defendants to have to pay the medical expenses when all they were doing was exercising their statutory rights to have a blood sample taken,” said Justice French. Such policy matters were for Parliament to consider.

“The District Court is a creature of statute, and it follows (that) the power to make the order must be derived from a statutory provision.”

The police practice had been to pay the doctor’s fee for taking the sample, but if the sample showed the driver over the limit reimbursement from the offender was always sought.

She ruled that legislation covered only the payment of the analyst’s fee, but did not give jurisdiction to cover other medical expenses. She ruled that the medical expenses could not be classed as reparations or a fine. The appellant had argued that a fine was not meant to reimburse the police for costs and a person should not be punished for exercising their statutory right to a blood test.

At the hearing, Bailey gave the example that in drug cases the offenders were not expected to pay for police surveillance operations.

Justice French said a deeming provision similar to the one used to collect the analyst’s fee was needed.

“There is no such provision and accordingly no jurisdiction to order payment of the medical expenses. The appeal is therefore allowed and the order to pay medical expenses quashed.”

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Police yet to decide on action against constable

Auckland police to review court documents before deciding whether to take any disciplinary action against Constable Aaron Holmes

4 August 2008

Auckland police are yet to decide whether Constable Aaron Holmes will face disciplinary action.

He has been fined $3,000 and has lost his licence for 12 months, after hitting a lamp post during a police pursuit in August last year. The lamp post subsequently fell on 14-year-old Farhat Buksh, leaving him with serious injuries.

In sentencing today, the judge at the Auckland District Court told Holmes he should have slowed down when he lost sight of the car he was chasing.

A police spokeswoman says Holmes’ bosses will make a decision on any disciplinary action after reviewing the court documents.

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Urgency on ‘vetted’ jury lists

July 26, 2008

The Supreme Court is to decide whether police can supply “vetted” jury lists to the Crown, enabling it to challenge potential jurors because of their criminal histories.

If the court decides police can supply the lists, it will then look at whether the list should also be made available to the accused.

The court will give the issue urgency, as it “potentially concerns every criminal jury trial”, Justice John McGrath said in a decision released yesterday.

The court has granted leave to a woman found guilty in a drugs case to challenge a Court of Appeal ruling that police can lawfully access the national criminal records database to provide a Crown Solicitor with any criminal history of those on the jury list.

The appeal court, by a majority, also held that the Crown was neither required nor permitted to disclose to the defence “non-disqualifying” criminal history information about potential jurors.

It could only do so when there was a likelihood that jurors with a criminal history might have an adverse predisposition towards the defence in a particular case.

The decision of the Supreme Court is unusual in that whatever it decides, it will not change the conviction and sentence for the appellant, Deborah Gordon-Smith.

Justice McGrath said because the trial judge’s ruling was favourable to Gordon-Smith and jury selection proceeded in accordance with his ruling, the appeal against the Court of Appeal’s adverse judgment could not be of any practical benefit to her.

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Grieving mother targets lawyer

09 July 2008

The mother of a woman killed by a police informer will lay a complaint against the man’s lawyer, who allowed his client to give a false name in court to avoid being returned to prison.

Mark Dollimore is expected to face a complaint to the Law Society over why he allowed his client, a hardened criminal, to give the court a new identity created for him under the witness protection programme.

The man’s use of the new name - which masked his extensive criminal history and the fact he was on parole - meant the judge treated him as a first offender. Despite being on a final warning for traffic offences, the man walked free from court.

A month later, in December 2006, he killed a 20-year-old woman when his car crossed the centre line and crashed into hers.

The woman’s mother said she believed Mr Dollimore’s silence about his client’s real identity had deceived the judge.

“That lawyer stood there in front of the same judge and the same police prosecutor from the earlier court hearing and let this happen,” she said last night. “How could any person, a lawyer even, do that and pretend to have a conscience?”

While a series of failures by government departments were relevant to her daughter’s death, the mother said she was determined to hold Mr Dollimore to account. “My daughter had a strong sense of justice and I’ve no doubt that if the roles were reversed she would be fighting for the truth just like I have had to.”

Police and Corrections staff - who also knew the man used a false name in court - were “captured” by the secrecy of the witness protection programme, she said.

Mr Dollimore has declined to comment.

His client was fined, lost the driver’s licence he obtained from the witness protection programme under his new name - and walked free.

Auckland University senior law lecturer Scott Optican said a lawyer had an ethical obligation not to mislead the courts. “If the judge said in court that [the criminal] was a first-time offender - and the lawyer just sat there and did not correct the mistake - then that is very misleading.”

But the case was made trickier by the man being in the witness protection programme. “The lawyer has to protect his client’s identity and the last thing the lawyer would want to do is divulge previous convictions under his client’s old name. It may have been he was acting in good faith with the programme.”

JUDGE EMBARGOES RULING:

The judge has released his decision on The Dominion Post’s challenge to overturn suppression orders said to prevent naming the killer police informer’s identity - but he has blocked publication till 9.30am today.

The newspaper, along with Crown Law on behalf of police and the Corrections Department, asked the High Court to vary the suppression orders on details of the case.

In a decision issued yesterday, Justice Simon France imposed an embargo preventing publication of his ruling till 9.30am today. No party had sought such an embargo during a hearing on Friday in the High Court at Wellington.

The Dominion Post’s lawyers sought to challenge the embargo but Justice France declined to hear submissions on the matter.

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Informant wins appeal

6:00AM Thursday August 21, 2008

A recidivist burglar has had his jail sentence quashed and case sent back to the district court because of his role as a police informant.

Conrad Gray, 24, smashed his way into the house of a Rotorua man last November and threatened him with an axe, said a Court of Appeal judgment released yesterday.

Gray was sentenced in Rotorua District Court to three years and three months on charges of assault with a weapon and burglary.

The Court of Appeal judgment said information about Gray’s assistance to police in a separate investigation was not brought to the sentencing judge’s attention.

His lawyer had argued that Gray’s sentence was excessive when his role as an informant was taken into account.

The Crown disagreed, saying his list of convictions and the seriousness of his recent offending - committed while on parole - made the original sentence adequate.

But the Court of Appeal quashed it and said rather than reconsider the sentence, it should be returned to the District Court.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=30&objectid=10528195

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Barlow’s Privy Council leave application this month

July 02, 2008

John Robert Barlow a Wellington gun and antique collector and businessman.
Convicted double killer John Barlow’s application for leave to have his case heard by the Privy Council will be held in London later this month.

Barlow’s lawyer, Greg King, told NZPA today the application would be heard on July 22.

Barlow was found guilty at his third trial of the 1994 shootings of businessman Eugene Thomas and his son Gene in their central Wellington office. Jurors failed to reach verdicts in the first two trials.

He was jailed for a minimum of 14 years and is due to be considered for parole for the first time in October this year.

Mr King said earlier this year that the focus was still on clearing Barlow’s name.

“John Barlow wants to leave prison an innocent man, not a paroled murderer,” Mr King said.

Barlow was denied a pardon in his first appeal in the Court of Appeal in October, 2006. In March this year, he was denied a second appeal, despite forensic evidence used to convict him being called into doubt.

Governor-General Anand Satyanand, on advice from Justice Ministry and Justice Minister Annette King, refused Barlow’s request to have his case heard a second time.

At Barlow’s third trial, the prosecution called a United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) ballistics expert who provided forensic evidence using lead content tests to match crime scene bullets with those in a box belonging to Barlow.

The FBI has since stopped its bullet-testing practice after scientific criticism it might produce a high rate of false matches of bullets.

It contacted law enforcement agencies worldwide, informing them of its decision.

In 166 years, only 10 New Zealand criminal cases have been granted full Privy Council hearings.

Of those six were dismissed, three were allowed and one was withdrawn by the appellant, Ministry of Justice statistics show.

In May last year, the Privy Council allowed convicted killer David Bain’s appeal, saying there has been a substantial miscarriage of justice.

Bain will be retried next year for the murder of his parents, two sisters and a brother

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Corrections is run by former “top cops.”

Prison officer ‘hounded by staff’

09 June 2008

An officer at Christchurch Men’s Prison took stress leave after being hounded by colleagues for reporting another guard for smuggling drugs, the Sensible Sentencing Trust says.

Revelations of the officer’s leave came as a prisoner inside Christchurch Men’s Prison told The Press “drugs are more accessible on the inside than the outside”.

Trust spokesman Garth McVicar said the prison officer felt pressured by colleagues after reporting another guard he caught bringing in contraband for prisoners.

“He caught a prison guard bringing in ill-gotten goods, so he reported it,” McVicar said.

“There were another couple of similar incidents he reported, and he ended up getting put under enormous pressure. The pressure was quite substantial and ultimately it ended up in him taking a complaint.”

The officer was now back at work after an inquiry, which “basically came to nothing”, McVicar said.

The Press understands the officer has been transferred to Rolleston Prison after he ran out of leave and had no choice but to return to work.

“He was on stress leave and he got advice on taking legal action against the department and trying to get some sort of compensation,” McVicar said.

On Friday, Corrections confirmed an officer had been on stress leave from the prison until recently. It could not confirm the circumstances.

A prisoner inside Christchurch Men’s Prison said that despite Corrections having “a bit more control” than in the past, drugs were “still rife” and staff at the prison were the main source.

“Most drugs are smuggled in via compromised staff members,” the prisoner said.

“Some comes in via trucks filled with steel that go to the engineering workshop. Some come in via visitors, who insert the drugs inside themselves, then pass them over during the visit.”

The prisoner claimed one staff member recently caught bringing in drugs was put in the job by the Mongrel Mob for just that purpose.

Corrections southern regional manager Paul Monk said stopping contraband and illegal drugs entering prisons was a priority.

Contraband and drug detection at the prison had been successful, he said.

However, the department did not know how many items of contraband had been seized in the past six months, because there was no centralised electronic recording system to document contraband seizures.

“There is always the possibility of corrupt practices occurring within the prison systems, because correction officers work with some of society’s most manipulative individuals,” Monk said.

Some of the allegations made by the prisoner were new to the department and would be thoroughly investigated, he said.

In March this year, Liam Reid, the man accused of murdering Christchurch woman Emma Agnew, was taken to hospital after reportedly overdosing on prescription drugs while being held at Christchurch Men’s Prison.

Figures obtained by The Press under the Official Information Act show one other inmate at Christchurch Men’s was hospitalised for overdosing between July 1 last year and May 16 this year.

Another was admitted for “foreign body removal” and two others were admitted for “investigations”. Another inmate was taken to hospital to have his jaw wired and another died in prison.

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Parole - when confessions don’t count

Saturday June 07, 2008

Did he or didn’t he? The Parole Board interpreted Brad Shipton’s answers to its questions as, effectively, a confession to rape. Shipton denies such an admission “contrition is hardly a confession,” his mother said.

But does it matter?

It does to his victim and other aggrieved women from his past, but to the Parole Board?

It shouldn’t says barrister Gary Gotlieb, a former president of the Auckland District Law Society.

There should be no requirement, regarding parole decisions, to acknowledge guilt.

“When you have had someone who has defended a charge at trial, given evidence, and then [the board] say `we are not going to let you out because you are not prepared to admit you are guilty,’ I say to them `this is a nonsense, he’s always said he is not guilty [but] he is accepting he was found guilty’.”

There are many cases where people later confess, Gotlieb says, but there are instances, too, where a prisoner’s denial is genuine.

Where would the requirement of an expression of guilt leave parole prospects for the likes of David Dougherty and Rex Haig, both eventually cleared? Peter Ellis did not want parole if it involved confessing to what he maintains he did not do.

Wellington barrister Greg King questioned the board’s interpretation of Shipton’s answers. “If I was on the end of that judgment as a lawyer, I would be absolutely furious.”

The board said Shipton (sentenced to eight and a half years) acknowledged he hadn’t asked the victim’s permission but verbal consent is but one _ and a rare one at that _ form of consent.

A Court of Appeal declaration in August 2006 clarified what the Parole Board can take into consideration. It said the only test for the board to apply was whether the prisoner posed an undue risk to the safety of the community. Deterrence was for the court to consider in setting nominal sentence, minimum periods of imprisonment and deciding whether to grant leave to apply for home detention, but were not relevant to the Parole Board.

The background was an earlier Appeal Court judgment regarding parole being declined to Alan Hawkins, a high-flying businessman convicted of fraud following the 1987 sharemarket crash.

In denying Hawkins parole, the board took deterrence into account, reasoning that public safety would be compromised because the deterrent component of his sentence would be significantly reduced if he was released after a third of his six-year sentence.

In 1995, the court upheld the decision to decline parole to Hawkins and thus allowed deterrence to be considered in parole decisions.

But in 2006 it overturned its earlier ruling, noting the regulatory framework had changed, with the courts now able to set minimum imprisonment and grant leave to apply for home detention. Which leaves the board to assess only the likelihood of Shipton reoffending.

Lawyer Michael Starling, who brought the Appeal Court challenge, said on what he has read of the Shipton case, although Shipton denies acting criminally, he appeared to acknowledge acting badly which might indicate he had gained some insight, and in turn mean he was a reduced risk of reoffending.

A psychologist’s report assessed Shipton as being a low risk of reoffending.

The Parole Board, however, said it was not satisfied he did not present an undue risk, and has requested another psychologist’s opinion regarding his risk and need for therapy, and adjourned the case until September.

Co-offender Bob Schollum (sentenced to eight years) has won an appeal against the board’s decision in April to keep him in prison. His appeal succeeded on one of six grounds _ that the board had not given due weight to support and supervision available to him on release.

Among grounds that failed were that the board had made “a moral judgment” and that it had refused parole solely on Schollum’s denial of his offending.

The judge who ruled on Schollum’s appeal said the board found Schollum still posed an undue risk not only because of his denial of guilt, but for other reasons such as his lack of remorse and his lack of empathy for the victim.

The board is to rehear Schollum’s application for parole as soon as possible.

Peter McNamara, another co-offender, was freed after serving two and a half years of a seven-year sentence. He had shown no remorse and maintained his innocence.

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Duff ponders legal action against police

June 07, 2008

Author Alan Duff is pondering legal action against the police after a judge chucked out traffic charges against him.

“They behaved abysmally and I’m going to see what my legal redress is. This is not finished. You can’t treat people like this,” Duff told the Dominion Post.

Traffic charges against Duff were dismissed yesterday in Taupo District Court, with a judge also criticising police for prosecuting him on other charges.

Duff, 57, had pleaded not guilty to failing to remain at a scene after being stopped for speeding, failing to stop for police and two counts of resisting police.

He was charged after an incident on Broadlands Rd, about 20km north of Taupo, on September 13 last year when he was stopped by a policewoman for speeding.

The resisting charges were withdrawn earlier this week and in his written judgment yesterday, Judge Chris McGuire said there seemed no practical reason why those charges were laid on January 4 instead of when the others were laid last September 14.

He said police evidence in support of the resisting charges was “unpersuasive and vague” and police were right to seek leave to withdraw the charges.

“The result, however, is that I am left uneasy over whether police prosecutorial power was used wisely and fairly in this instance,” Judge McGuire said.

The court had been told that Constable Patricia Foden had pulled the Once Were Warriors author over for speeding and he started “ranting”. She later threatened to pepper spray him when he tried to avoid having both arms handcuffed together.

Judge McGuire said Duff became “very fired up” after Ms Foden told him he had been going 112km/h and he saw the locked reading on the radar was 110km/h.

“I have considered the situation of a sole average sized, slim female officer versus a taller and more powerfully built male meeting in these circumstances in a rural district …,” Judge McGuire said.

Although she did not appear fazed by Duff, she would have been startled by his “seizing the initiative” the way he did and his sudden anger.

When she asked for his details, he said he had done nothing wrong and initially refused.

When making a “query person” (QP) request to police communications and writing down his details, he went back to his car and drove off.

She gave pursuit and requested assistance. After 3.5km she stopped him again and told him he was under arrest for failing to remain and failing to stop.

But Duff’s lawyer said he had been entitled to drive off when he did because from the moment Ms Foden initiated the QP, she was not exercising any power under the Land Transport Act.

Judge McGuire agreed and said police have no power to detain a citizen except under express statutory power.

“It may well be that a public debate on this issue is timely,” he said.

“There may well be very sound practical and pragmatic reason to give carte blanche to QPs in their present form in all cases where drivers are stopped.

“But there are certainly arguments to the contrary that they are an unwarranted and further erosion of human rights. Those arguments are not for me to decide. Ultimately they are matters for Parliament.”

Duff had fulfilled his duties under section 114 of the Act to remain stopped to provide personal details required of him. Having given Ms Foden the opportunity to establish his identity, he was entitled to leave when he did, the judge said.

With the charge of failing to remain dismissed, the other charge of failing to stop must also be dismissed.

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Father: I want answers

June 01, 2008

A grieving father is demanding answers after police finally admitted an officer had been pursuing a car that crashed more than a year ago, killing Jamie McElrea.

Mark McElrea’s 17-year-old son died in a high-speed crash at Dairy Flat, north of Auckland, on Easter Monday, April 9, 2007. Until last month, police denied they had been chasing a Subaru WRX being driven by Troy Anderson at up to 160km/h and in which Jamie, Kayla Hewison and Matthew Anderson were passengers. Constable Gavin MacDonnell, the lone officer in an unmarked police car involved in the incident, said there had been no chase.

But after witnesses and Hewison gave McElrea a different version of events, he collected signed witness statements and fire and ambulance reports. McElrea put a list of more than 100 questions to police last year.

Senior Sergeant Nadene Richmond, of the Waitemata police professional standards team, gave responded to some on May 23. “My findings are that, according to the definition in the Police Pursuit Policy of when a pursuit is commenced, a pursuit had commenced, was abandoned and then re-commenced,” she wrote.

She said MacDonnell had stopped at traffic lights on East Coast Rd when he saw the WRX travelling at “particularly excessive” speeds. He had not obtained permission to give chase. The police communications centre “was not advised of the pursuit.”

She said the chase was abandoned, but when he saw the Subaru stopped in traffic, MacDonnell had activated his lights and siren and given chase.

Witnesses had told police the Subaru had been travelling at speeds of up to 160km/h.

Richmond said Anderson had lost control and the Subaru had rolled and hit a bank. Jamie had been thrown out, hitting a concrete power pole.

A coronial autopsy found he had sustained injuries including a fractured skull, brain oedema, subdural haemorrhage and herniation. He had died next day at Auckland Hospital.

Hewison and Anderson, in the back seat and not wearing seatbelts, had been thrown clear, Hewison ending up in a ditch and Anderson in the middle of the road.

The police Serious Crash Unit said Jamie’s seatbelt had failed to stop him being ejected because his seat had been reclined back.

Anderson was convicted of reckless driving causing death, reckless driving causing injury, driving while disqualified and failing to stop for police. He was sentenced on March 18 to two years and six months in jail and disqualified from driving for four years.

The Independent Police Conduct Authority said on Friday it was waiting to review the police file.

The authority can make recommendations to the Police Commissioner who then must tell them what action he proposes. If that action is not deemed suitable the authority must tell the attorney-general and Minister of Police.

McElrea and his partner Rae Travis are demanding an investigation into MacDonnell’s actions. They also want a coroner’s inquest but in a letter to McElrea, Coroner Dr Murray Jamieson said there would be no inquest because coroners did not hold inquests into “deaths that have already been the subject of judicial consideration by other courts”.

McElrea and Travis have hired lawyer John Moroney and are considering a private prosecution.

“People need to know this is what our system is,” Travis said. “This won’t bring Jamie back but we just want answers.”

DANGEROUS PURSUITS
A review released last year found that 12 people died and 120 were seriously injured in police chases between April 2004 and May 2007.

Fourteen of those injured were innocent members of the public and all those killed were in cars trying to escape police.

The review was prompted by a number of high-profile cases last year including one in which three teens were killed after their car left the St Lukes off-ramp on the northwestern motorway in Auckland and smashed into a tree on Christmas Eve, 2006.

Police officer Aaron Holmes was charged with aggravated careless use of a motor vehicle causing injury after an incident last August, which left 13-year-old Farhat Buksh with serious brain injuries.

Court documents show Holmes hit a post that injured Farhat during a chase in Mt Albert. He has appeared before a defended hearing and should know his fate later this month.

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Rewards rethink after acquittal
Defence claims cash influenced key witness

30 May 2008

The practice of offering rewards in murder cases is under review after the defence in the Foreman trial used the proposed payout to undermine the Crown’s star witness.

The Sensible Sentencing Trust was set to pay $50,000 to Donna Kingi if Murray Foreman was convicted of the murder of Hawke’s Bay farmer Jack Nicholas, but Mr Foreman’s lawyer, Bruce Squire, QC, said Ms Kingi was motivated only by money and discredited her evidence.

Mr Foreman was acquitted on Wednesday, and trust spokesman Garth McVicar said it was unlikely rewards for information leading to conviction would be offered in future.

Not guilty verdicts in three murder cases in the past fortnight have stirred heated debate on the justice system, the role of crown prosecutors, and faith in the police.

The other acquittals were those of Chris Kahui, who was accused of killing his twin baby sons in Auckland, and George Gwaze, accused of sexual violation and murder of his 10-year-old niece in Christchurch.

A number of defence lawyers and the Green Party have called for a public prosecutions office to provide more independent advice on when to prosecute.

They say police are prone to picking a suspect and then trying to fit the case around them.

Defence lawyer Barry Hart said crown solicitors, who are private lawyers, were too often close to police and unable to provide impartial advice.

But defence lawyer Greg King said the verdicts were proof the system worked.

Juries were more savvy about what happened in courts than they used to be.

Though the public used to accept without question everything police said, controversies such as the Iraena Asher case, the 111 troubles, the Operation Austin inquiry into officers’ sexual misconduct and the “terrorist raids” had dented confidence.

Auckland University associate law professor Scott Optican said any attempt to draw a pattern from the three acquittals was “nonsense”.

“You’re supposed to have acquittals if there’s no evidence. It doesn’t mean things have gone wrong with the system. They’ve gone right.”

Mr Optican said there was a conflict between the instinct to hold someone accountable and the needs of justice.

“Wanting to hold someone accountable doesn’t mean you should hold anyone accountable.”

Solicitor-general David Collins said two other recent, high-profile cases, those of Lipine Sila and Ian Crutchley, had resulted in convictions.

Police and the Crown would review their roles in all five cases.

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Speed cameras snapping speeding cops
15 May 2008

Figures obtained by 3 News show police are regularly speeding in police vehicles, even when there is no emergency.

The figures released under the Official Information Act show that on average one police vehicle has been caught on camera every weekday for the last three years.

“It’s not good,” Inspector John McClelland told 3 News. “It’s certainly not a good example as far as what we would expect from police drivers. But they are human and sometimes they do make mistakes and they pay for them accordingly.”

In 2005, 511 police vehicles were caught on camera, 685 the following year and 562 for last year.

Of the total figure, on 985 occasions it was for legitimate emergencies. The remaining 773 fines were for illegal speeding.

The fastest police vehicle was clocked at 167 kilometres per hour in a 100km zone.

“It’s travelling pretty quickly and it would certainly be treated seriously,” Inspector McClelland said.

Current laws mean this would land the driver in court and could lead to licence suspension.

Police were unable to say where this officer was caught but did refer to it as an offence.

“Given the focus on ticket quotas in the past and the continued assertions about road safety, I guess the public would ask that they practice what they preach,” NZ First MP Ron Mark said.

Police say they have a zero tolerance policy and are quick to point out some of their 3,000 vehicles are on the roads 24 hours a day.

Speed cameras have been snapping away since 1993 and a set of modern replacements will soon be on the streets. It is understood that the number of mobile cameras will likely increase and so too may the number of tickets being issued to police and members of the public.

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I remember a young cop who’s dad was a top cop ( Phil White I believe) being clocked at 167k in a 50 k area, he was charged but he got off because he was going to a NON injury accident. The good old days.

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Radio NZ: Checkpoint, 14 September 2006:

Prison authorities investigating claims that convicted double murderer Scott Watson sent cellphone pics of his genitals to a fifteen year old girl have cleared the killer but have no idea who is responsible. An anonymous letter making the claims and signed “anxious parents was sent to Christchurch prison this week. It included cellphone photos of the inside of a prison. Paul Rushton is the acting southern general Manager with the corrections department.

Transcript

Rushton Ah, the letter just explained that she’d received unacceptable pixt photos and she was quite worried about this as this young lady was fifteen years old. Obviously we took that very seriously and were concerned also, that it was a young lady. Checkpoint So she had been receiving messages and pictures from him on her cellphone? Rushton Allegedly, yes Checkpoint Pictures of his genitals? Rushton That is what was suggested, however we did not receive that from her. That was an allegation made in the letter. Checkpoint You haven’t seen any evidence of that? You haven’t seen any of the pictures? Rushton No, unfortunately. We did receive some pictures but the pictures are of what we’ve identified as a cell block, and part of a prison cell block that we can confirm that prison cell block is not of Christchurch prison.

Checkpoint So it would seem odd to be getting photos allegedly from Watson that are not of the prison where he is at? Rushton I would agree with that. Checkpoint What kind of credence are you giving to the claims in the letter then Given that it is anonymous? Rushton Well it is not a matter of taking giving it credence. It’s about taking it seriously when a member of the public have received pictures of parts of a prison allegedly through ah pxt photos we’ve got to take it seriously. It’s unacceptable that this could occur and so therefore were taking it seriously. We’ve involved the police and we’ve carried out an investigation ourselves. Checkpoint So the pictures are of what prison then? Rushton I can’t confirm that but I can confirm that by design they are not of Christchurch prison. Checkpoint Have you spoken to Watson? Rushton Mmm, yes we have, and as part of a search procedure we’ve talked to a number of people.

Checkpoint Has he got a cellphone? Rushton No we did not find any cellphone and we used our, we’ve got new cell, we’ve got new cellphone detection equipment and we were unsuccessful with that and we were unsuccessful with a physical search, we did not find any cellphone. Checkpoint It would seem rather astonishing actually that if the parents were so concerned about this that they would not give you their names. What would stop them from doing that? Rushton Perhaps receiving anything from a prisoner, inside a prison would intimidate any person and I personally can understand why they might be in fear of actually identifying themselves. It’s a little bit unfortunate that they did not send us a photo of the prisoner….

Checkpoint They had a photo of the prisoner? Rushton No. If they had a photo of him through the pxt photos and they had sent that in it would have made it a lot easier for us. There’s a possibility, a strong possibility, that someone is doing this on another prisoner’s behalf or naming another prisoner so therefore we’ve got to be very very careful in how we carry out our investigation, but it’s important that we do carry out the investigation. Checkpoint But do you think there is a possibility that the whole thing is bogus? Rushton No, I don’t think it’s bogus at all because they are definitely pictures of a prison. There is a possibility that the prisoner named, may be bogus. That prisoner may be being, set up, for a better word. Checkpoint Have you come across this situation before, then? Rushton On numerous occasions, there’ll be examples of where people will give information about a prisoner which is not true.

Checkpoint And the actual photos of the prison, what sort of details are in that? Rushton Ahh, they are generalized they are just of a wing. They do not show any prisoners. They just show the inside of the unit. Checkpoint So does that mean that you can see a row of cells or something like that? Rushton Correct. I am sending to other prisons and they can try to ascertain the unit…. But even then it would be difficult to confirm who the prisoner would be. Checkpoint Unless you can get more information as far as your concerned the matter more or less stops here? Rushton We can’t take it any further. We would certainly like that person to come forward and give us more information but your correct if we don’t get any more information there’s not a lot we can do. Checkpoint And Scott Watson is not under investigation? Rushton No, He is not. And that is Paul Rushton from the Corrections Department.

RNZ

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Police and army apologise to Waiouru cadet family
30 Mar 2008

Senior police and army officials have apologised to the family of an army cadet, Grant Bain, who was fatally shot while in training at Waiouru in 1981.

A fellow cadet, Andrew Read was prosecuted for a firearms offence, but an independent investigation in 2005 found that a manslaughter charge should have been brought.

The deputy Police Commissioner Rob Pope and the Chief of Army Lou Gardiner apologised to the Bain family on Saturday.

Mr Pope says he apologised unreservedly for the insensitive way the family were treated by the police, because they weren’t kept informed about the prosecution process and the nature of the charge.

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Crucial rape trial witness recants evidence
By PHIL KITCHIN - The Dominion Post | Saturday, 11 August 2007

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Louise Nicholas’ former flatmate, whose evidence helped to destroy her chance of getting a guilty verdict against suspended assistant police commissioner Clint Rickards and convicted rapists Brad Shipton and Bob Schollum, has recanted her crucial evidence.

The flatmate, who has name suppression, refused to come to New Zealand to give evidence at the men’s trial last year, but parts of statements she made to police and the defence were read as evidence.

Mr Rickards, Schollum and Shipton were accused of pack-raping Mrs Nicholas in Rotorua in the 1980s, but were all acquitted.

In a separate trial, however, Shipton and Schollum were convicted of pack-raping a young woman in Mt Maunganui.

On Wednesday, former detective inspector John Dewar was convicted of four counts of attempting to obstruct or defeat the course of justice, relating to Mrs Nicholas’ complaints of sexual offending by police.

The Dominion Post has a recording of Mrs Nicholas’ former flatmate in Corlett St, Rotorua, saying if she had gone to last year’s trial she would not have been able to put her hand on the Bible and swear she had told the truth.

“If anyone said to me, ‘Can you swear on what you said?’, I’d say no,” she said.

“I’ve said so many times, this (her statements) is only what I can vaguely remember.

“It beats me how that can be used as evidence because I could not swear on it being true.”

The former flatmate told Mrs Nicholas that she thought a private investigator, hired by the defence to get a statement from her soon after the police rape scandal broke, “tried to manipulate my words”.

The flatmate’s secretly taped conversation with Mrs Nicholas - recorded in Australia after the acquittals - is among several revelations in a book on Mrs Nicholas being published by Random House next month.

The flatmate’s U-turn puts the spotlight back on Mr Rickards, who wants his job back but faces an internal police inquiry.

Police refused to comment yesterday on that inquiry.

When a witness refuses to come to court it is rare for their evidence to be used. But in a hearing before the trial of Mr Rickards, Shipton and Schollum defence lawyers argued that the jury should hear the flatmate’s statements because they were crucial to the defence.

The Crown argued that if the statements were allowed, they should be read in their entirety. The defence won.

The judge did not allow part of the flatmate’s last statement to police.

In it she said she didn’t want the policemen coming around for sex but she felt she couldn’t say no.

The judge allowed part of the flatmate’s statement to former senior policeman Rex Miller in 1995.

Mr Miller was investigating former Rotorua CIB chief John Dewar’s handling of Mrs Nicholas’ allegations that she was raped by Mr Rickards, Shipton, Schollum and a former Murupara policeman.

The flatmate said she had group sex with Shipton and Schollum and Louise “certainly wasn’t saying no”.

At the trial defence lawyers used the flatmate’s evidence to attack Mrs Nicholas’ credibility.

After the trial Mrs Nicholas went to Australia and spoke to the flatmate.

In a secretly recorded conversation the flatmate said that, when she was 17, she did not realise saying no was an option.

“I said (to police), ‘Hypnotise me because I can’t remember it. Maybe I have completely blocked it out’.”

She believed police used their “power and uniforms to intimidate me. I probably could have stopped them but I didn’t know better … I mean it was gross and creepy and nasty … I don’t know, it’s buried so deep.”

Former police officer Mr Miller told The Dominion Post he believed the flatmate was lying when he spoke to her in 1995.

“When I spoke to her, I don’t know what it was, but I had a gut feeling someone had spoken to her before me … someone had got at her … it was all bullshit. She was lying.”

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Police intend to take statement

20 November 2007

In June 1998, six months after the Sounds incident, Fry told The Gisborne Herald he had run into trouble coming back from Auckland, having to be towed into Tauranga after snapping his foremain mast. At the time he spoke of earlier cooking his motor while in Auckland, which could have placed him there around the time of the Arlidge sighting.

Police have confirmed they will meet the Arlidges to take a statement, a move that has astonished long-time Watson campaigner Mike Kalaugher.

“We were chatting with the guy, so I jokingly said to him, ‘Gosh the police must be interested in your boat with this hoo-ha at Furneaux Lodge’,” said David Arlidge.

“Unbelievably, he said to me — without any hesitation — ‘I know, I was there’.”

The Arlidges did not call the police as they thought the case was “done and dusted”.

The skipper told them he was planning to do some work on the boat but was gone the next day.

The Arlidges are adamant the ketch exists and hope that coming forward publicly will prompt other people.

“We know what we saw. I’m now utterly convinced that Scott Watson is innocent,” David Arlidge told the New Zealand Herald this week.

Last week, Olivia Hope’s father Gerald told the media of his growing doubts about Watson’s conviction and said he would try to free him if convinced of his innocence.

These doubts and Mr Kalaugher’s recent book have prompted renewed interest in the case, and the mystery of the ill-fated Lonebird.

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Raids target top medal suspects
February 27, 2008

A police officer pulls a curtain to block the Herald’s view during a search. Photo / Richard Robinson

Police hunting the war medal thieves went to Mt Eden prison and raided two other addresses linked to prime suspects yesterday.

A search warrant was executed at Mt Eden prison where a suspect - who can be known only as W because of a court order - has been held on other charges since three days after the December 2 theft of the 96 medals from Waiouru Army museum.

W is a convicted criminal who was on bail when the medals were stolen, having struck a deal with police over a Goldie painting and other artefacts taken in a similar crime.

The Herald also found detectives searching the home of a joint suspect with W - known as K - in West Auckland yesterday.

They left the address in two plain cars registered to the central police district in Palmerston North where the hunt for the thieves, codenamed Operation Valour, is based.

One car was carrying a computer’s hard drive.

The third search warrant was for a private address in the greater Auckland area.

The officer leading the hunt for the thieves, Detective Senior Sergeant Chris Bensemann, would not comment last night when asked if it was the former home of W.

Mr Bensemann said no arrests had been made.

W and K are the medals theft suspects, criminal and legal sources say.

At an Auckland District Court hearing in October last year - six weeks before the medals theft - W struck an elaborate deal with police over the return of the Goldie painting and other artefacts stolen from the University of Auckland.

He returned the painting after three of four fraud-related charges were dropped against him, and he was set free on bail before a sentencing due to take place on December 5 - three days after the theft.

K, whose occupation is listed as a tradesman, was not at home during yesterday’s search.

His partner was at the home with three young children. She would not say where he was.

It is understood K and W have known each other since they were at high school in West Auckland 20 years ago.

They are jointly accused of another crime, and K has been out on bail on these charges.

Police have defended the Goldie deal with W, saying the only leniency they showed him was dropping the three fraud-related charges and that he was never held in custody for them.

But court documents seen by the Herald show they also agreed to not charge him in relation with the University of Auckland burglary - committed in the 2006-7 Christmas break - something the judge sentencing him on the remaining charge said was “in itself a considerable reward”.

“Plainly it would seem to me you must have been if not part of the action then well-known to those who were, and at least in peril of prosecution as a receiver,” said Judge Phil Gittos.

* THE KEY PLAYERS

“W”: A leading suspect, he was free on bail when medals were stolen on December 2 after striking a deal with police over the return of a Goldie painting taken in an earlier crime. He was put in Mt Eden prison for another crime three days after the medals theft and has been there since. Has 84 fraud convictions and 55 for burglary.

“K”: A joint suspect, his west Auckland home was raided by police yesterday. He is understood to have been friends with W since they were teenagers, and they are alleged to have been accomplices in another crime, for which he is now on bail. Whereabouts unknown yesterday.

Daniel William Crichton: Leading gang figure who got a bail-for-medals deal on January 21. He spent the weeks beforehand in Mt Eden prison with his known associate W.

Chris Comeskey: The lawyer who claimed credit for brokering the return of the medals this month. It has since been revealed he was involved in W’s earlier Goldie deal, and was representing Crichton on serious drugs charges when his bail deal was struck.

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Complaint alleges police tasered cuffed man
20 February 2008

An investigation has been launched into claims Queensland police used a taser on a handcuffed man three times in order to shut him up.

Australian Police Minister Judy Spence yesterday confirmed a complaint alleging a police officer had repeatedly used a taser on a man in the Cleveland watchhouse to stop him from swearing had been filed in September last year.

Police said it was one of four complaints that had been made regarding the use of the weapons.

The police spokesman said one case, in which an officer was found to have threatened to use the gun but did not, had been dismissed.

Two other cases were being investigated and officers from the Ethical Standards Command were awaiting the outcome of the complainant’s court proceedings before investigating the fourth.

When asked whether she was concerned over the claims considering the statewide rollout of tasers in July this year, Ms Spence said the claims had not yet been proved.

“It is important to remember the matter is currently under investigation, with no claims having yet been proven, and with the QPS (Queensland Police Service) Ethical Standards Command overseeing the investigation,” she said in a statement.

She urged anyone who believed they had been mistreated by police to complain to the Police Ethical Standards Command or to the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC).

“The fact that the individual in question has accessed these avenues demonstrates our commitment to accountability,” she said.

Ms Spence earlier this year announced the weapon would be carried by all Queensland frontline officers from July.

The announcement was welcomed by police but civil libertarians argued police would misuse the weapon.

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Sunday, 4 March 2007
Accuser’s ‘vendetta’

Accusations that Louise Nicholas has orchestrated a “revenge-at-all-costs” vendetta to punish the men, who testified against her in her first rape complaint against police.

Assistant Police Commissioner Clint Rickards was a defence witness in the 1994 trial of a policeman charged with raping Nicholas as a teenager in Murupara. After three trials - the first two were aborted - he was acquitted.

He attacked Nicholas’ credibility by testifying she had had group sex with him and others in 1985 and 1986, allegations which later formed the basis of her high-profile rape complaint.

Greg Shipton, a former police officer of 16 years, says she was humiliated after her original rape complaint was thrown out. When allegations resurfaced in 2004, she “made a meal out of it” to hurt the men whose testimony had damaged her 1994 case.

Nicholas rejected the allegation, saying that while she was angry that Rickards, Schollum and Shipton had appeared for the defence, it had not been the motivation for her later rape complaint. Nicholas did not make a formal rape complaint against the trio in the early 1990s.

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Charge in Jack Nicholas killing

18.04.2006

A 49-year-old Haumoana man was this morning charged with perverting the course of justice in relation to the Jack Nicholas murder inquiry.

“It is a significant step forward,” was how Detective Senior Sergeant Bill Gregory of the Napier CIB described the latest events in the 20-month-old investigation. The Puketitiri farmer was shot dead at the gate of his property on August 27, 2004.

The case sparked back into life last Thursday when a specialist search team zeroed in on a Haumoana property the man had previously occupied. The result was the discovery of a single rifle-bullet case.

It has been sent to Environmental Science and Research for forensic examination, although police were unable to say how long that process would take.
The property had been searched earlier in the inquiry although nothing had been found.

The case had been found in a place police described as “not immediately apparent to the eye”.

As a further result of last week’s search, this morning police visited a Haumoana man, described as a construction labourer, at his house as he was about to leave for work.

They took him to the Napier Police Station to be interviewed.

Mr Gregory said that as a result of the interview the man was arrested on the charge of perverting the course of justice. The man had been interviewed at length earlier in the investigation.

The specialist search team moved in to make detailed searches of two other Haumoana properties today.

As well as the specialist searchers, a firearms-detection dog unit was called in.

Detectives also spoke to “several” other people during the weekend in relation to the inquiry.

Mr Gregory said police were keeping the latest developments in perspective because they had had previous hopes raised and later dashed.

“We are just following a line of enquiry and we hope it will lead to a result.”

The arrested man was scheduled to appear in the Napier District Court to face the charge later today.

The family of murdered Puketitiri farmer Mr Nicholas has been buoyed by recent developments in the inquiry, but, like police, will be taking things one step at a time.

One of the dead man’s sons, Oliver Nicholas, said today the family had never lost hope that one day the case would be solved and justice would be done.

“It has to be solved,” he said today.

“They are still relying on that one vital bit of evidence, but they have obviously got their sights on something. “You have to remain hopeful.”

Mr Nicholas said the family had struggled with their loss but had to keep going forward.

He said it had been especially tough on the grandchildren of 71-year-old Mr Nicholas.

The youngsters had found it difficult to comprehend what had happened to their grandad.

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Fine for insulting police
January 30, 2008

A Queenstown concert-goer who told police officers they were “all just rapists” has lost his appeal against conviction on charges of using insulting language and resisting arrest.

Simon Paul Aurelia Evans was fined $500 with $260 court costs in the district court following an incident at a winery concert attended by 3000 last June.

In the High Court at Invercargill, Justice John Hansen said Evans was displeased with the police for having closed a bar early.

When the officers asked him to move on, he was said to have told them: “I suppose you are going to have group sex with my girlfriend now and rape her using batons and whatever else you like to use.”

He also said the police were “all just rapists anyway”.

Justice Hansen said Evans claimed that his words did not amount to insulting language.

But the judge said that Evans was implying that the two constables would personally indulge in such illegal behaviour, aggravated by kidnap and brutality.

The words used were beyond what anyone should have to bear, and if said to a member of the public would likely have resulted in a “physical reaction.”

Justice Hansen said “I do not consider that in a fair and democratic society his [Evans’] comments could be seen as anything other than insults.”

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Alarm at police use of tracking devices
| Sunday, 20 January 2008

Police applied to the courts to use hi-tech tracking devices to monitor the movements of suspected criminals or terrorists on more than 30 occasions in the past year.

But police are tight-lipped on the circumstances, saying that even revealing the areas of the country involved could “prejudice the maintenance of the law”.

Civil libertarians are worried by police use of the tracking devices and fear it may be another example of legislation intended to fight terrorism being misused. The issue was highlighted last September when a Central Otago man discovered tracking devices in a car he used.

Ralph Williams, of Cromwell, found them in his daughter’s car and in his flatmate’s car after police returned the vehicles, which they had seized.

He ripped the devices out and listed one for sale on TradeMe. Police would not confirm or deny that they placed the devices, and asked TradeMe to remove the listing.

A cellphone sim card in one of them appeared to transmit messages to the mobile phone of Detective Sergeant Derek Shaw, of the Central Otago CIB.

Information obtained by the Sunday Star-Times under the Official Information Act shows that in the year ended June 2007, police applied to the courts for warrants to use tracking devices on 32 occasions. In the previous 12 months there were 31 applications.

The Summary Proceedings Act, which covers tracking devices, says a warrant should be obtained but an officer can install one without a warrant if there is not time and the officer believes a judge would issue a warrant.

Detective Inspector Don Lee, who is manager of the police’s national technical support unit, said that on no occasion in the past two years had police used a tracking device without first obtaining a warrant.

Barry Wilson, of the Auckland Council for Civil Liberties, said the high number of warrant applications was worrying as the legal provision they were relying on was passed as part of counter-terrorism legislation introduced in 2003.

Then, police argued they should have the right to use tracking devices in investigations into any offences punishable by imprisonment on the grounds there were links between terrorism and organised crime.

“Really, any use of tracking devices should be directly related to terrorist acts, not just anything that is ordinary crime because it is such a huge intrusion into people’s privacy. That’s a lot of warrants to be issued over two years for something that was meant to be a counter-terrorism measure,” Wilson said.

He warned there was no protection for people if police misused the warrant.

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Hey big spenders - no wonder the police are called the bill
January 20, 2008

Police top brass have racked up tens of thousands of dollars in credit card bills staying at top hotels, and spending up large on food and alcohol.

In the past year, globetrotting Commissioner of Police Howard Broad - who earns around $450,000 a year - has stayed at a string of luxury hotels, including San Francisco’s Hilton Hotel, Hong Kong’s Macau Center, Seoul’s Hyatt Regency, New York’s 70 Park Avenue Hotel and Washington DC’s Hotel Madera.

Deputy Commissioners Rob Pope and Lyn Provost have also racked up the frequent-flyer miles, with trips to Paris, Beijing, Tokyo and Hawaii, staying at leading resort hotels such as the Marriott in Waikiki Beach.

Thousands of dollars have been charged by the country’s top police officers to credit cards for meals and miscellaneous expenditure, with some of the bills including:

$3949 to greenstone store Taonga Pounamu

$1203 to Fat Boys Bar in the Solomon Islands

$1159 to Harvey Furnishings

$1102 to Wellington’s Juniper Restaurant

$1045 to Briscoes

$939 to Wellington’s Molly Malones

$783 to the White House Restaurant in Wellington.

The spending wasn’t confined to the commissioner and his deputies - Assistant Commissioners Jon White, Grant Nicholls and Gavin Jones ran up credit card bills of more than $40,000 on overseas accommodation, meals and other miscellaneous expenditure.

That did not include international flights, which are paid for separately.

National’s police spokesman, Chester Borrows, said that on the face of it, “This was not the sort of spending we expect from police.”

But police say the expenses were “reasonable” and, in all cases, were for legitimate police business.

Police Association head Greg O’Connor also chimed in adding: “These are guys who spend half their lives overseas. Of course they are going to have big bills.”

Figures released to the Herald on Sunday under the Official Information Act show that in the year to October 31, $2.4 million was charged to police-issued credit cards. Most of the 653 Westpac Mastercards had a $2000 credit limit; seven had a $20,000 limit.

White, who led the so-called terror raids in October, was the top spender, booking up $25,217 on his credit card - around $5000 more than Broad, who spent a total of $20,436.

For White, that included stays at the luxury 391-room Conrad Hotel in Bangkok, Nadi’s Tanoa International Hotel and Singapore’s Shangri La.

White also spent around $7000 on hotel stays in Wellington, nearly $4000 on “official” greenstone gifts at Taonga Pounamu - and one credit card statement mentions a “cash advance fee”, despite police protocols prohibiting such withdrawals.

Former Assistant Commissioner Peter Marshall - a member of the New Zealand police since 1972 and now Deputy Commissioner of the Solomon Islands police - booked up nearly $10,000 on his credit card over a four-month period.

That included $1200 at Fat Boys Bar, another $1200 at Harvey Furnishings, $1045 at Briscoes and nearly $1000 at Molly Malones.

Police financial operations manager Steven Eveleigh said various items required for Marshall’s move to Honiara were paid for by credit card. These included purchases at Harvey Furnishings and Briscoes.

The $1200 bill at Fat Boys Bar was for meals and accommodation for Marshall, his wife and a guest.

The meal at Molly Malones was the final dinner for the National Crime Managers Conference in Wellington, which around 30 people attended.

Meanwhile, Provost, Jones and Nicholls spent less than $10,000 each for the year.

Eveleigh said credit card expenditure was “routinely checked and certified as correct”.

He said, “no serious issues” of card misuse had been identified.

Westpac protocols for police-issued credit cards state cards can only be used for travel, accommodation, meals, rental cars, petrol, taxis, training costs, petty cash items and minor operating expenditure items.

If the cardholder has delegated authority, purchases can be made at stores like Briscoes, but only to the value of $200. Cards were not to be used for personal expenditure, internet purchases or cash withdrawals.

Documents provided by police show Broad travelled to the United States, Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea and Australia.

His credit card bills show a $5057 payment to the Hotel Madera in Washington for a nine-night stay; $2532 for three nights at New York’s 70 Park Avenue Hotel; $1457 for six nights at Hong Kong’s Macau Center; $1305 to Hong Kong’s Renaissance Harbour for a two-night stay; two nights at the Hilton Hotel in San Francisco for $888; $790 to Seoul Hyatt Regency for two nights. All the trips were for official police business.

Eveleigh said there was no policy on hotel accommodation, except that costs had to be fair and reasonable.

Pope was the second biggest spender, with $20,707 charged to his credit card for the year to October 31.

That included a $2995 stay at Paris’ Home Plaza Hotel and an $1895 stay at London’s Club Quarters.

Pope also booked up more than $1800 at Auckland’s SkyCity on two nights’ accommodation, meals and parking on a work visit that included attending the Clint Rickards trial.

As well, he spent $1261 for three nights at Beijing’s China World Hotel and $1155 at Marriott Hotels in Hawaii for a three-night stay.

O’Connor said the criticism was “small-minded”. “I know how tight the whole police operation is, and how aware they are of public scrutiny.”

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Father warned for disciplining boy, 3
14 January 2008

A Christchurch father is fuming after he received a police warning for hitting a child after he flicked his son’s ear in public as a reprimand.

Professional musician Jimmy Mason flicked the ear of his son, Seth, at the Bridge of Remembrance just before Christmas after the three-year-old disobeyed his instructions while riding his new bike.

The toddler took off down a ramp and was followed by his brother, Zach, two, who was also on a new bike. Seth made the tight corner but Zach did not, and injured his eye.

“Seth just wanted to go on riding. He didn’t realise the seriousness of it with the youngest one slipping in and out of consciousness,” Mason said.

“So I turned to Seth and flicked him on the ear and told him to shut up while we fixed up the young one,” Mason said.

A nearby teacher took umbrage, an off-duty policewoman rang the incident in and in minutes later Mason was surrounded by six police officers.

“They were going to arrest me and were trying to ascertain whether it was safe for the kids to go home with me,” he said.

“It was pretty bizarre to tell you the truth.”

Mason said he took his sons biking every day and they needed to obey his instructions to the letter in order to stay safe.

“When I say ’stop’ to the kids they have got to stop,” he said. “I said to the cops that I need to impress upon him (Seth) what he did was wrong and I need to impress it on him straight away and asked them how they suggested I do it.

“They didn’t know and I said to them, ‘Well, you’ve just told me what I did was wrong so you must know what is right’.”

In the end, Mason was not charged but he was told that a warning would go on his record for hitting his child.

“It needs to be on record that I disciplined him for something he deserved, not that I’m a child beater.

“There’s an irony there that they can spray, Taser or shoot me but I can’t flick my son in the ear to stop him getting run over at an intersection.”

He was considering legal action to have the warning removed from his record.

He felt sorry for the police having to administer the amended child-discipline law which came into force in June last year.

Inspector Rick Jury said he could not discuss individual cases but the law gave the police some discretion.

“It says every parent is justified in using force if it’s reasonable in the circumstances,” he said. One of the specific clauses allowing some force was for the purposes of preventing or minimising harm, and the legislation allowed police to make a determination over whether it was “inconsequential” and not in the public interest to prosecute.

Family First national director Bob McCoskrie said cases like this showed the law was an ass.

“It just seems totally over the top,” he said. “That’s the problem with this law, it’s lost the common-sense element. It’s a feel-good law change but has done nothing to protect kids who are actually being abused.”

A police spokeswoman said a review since the amendment found that between June and September last year police were called to three smacking incidents and 12 minor acts of physical discipline. The 15 cases were determined to be “inconsequential” and not worth prosecuting, although nine warnings were issued.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Sensible Sentencing deletes Sounds case from website
January 13, 2008

Hardline criminal justice campaigner Garth McVicar admits to being “uneasy” about the conviction of Scott Watson - and has removed any reference to the case from the Sensible Sentencing Trust website.

McVicar told the Herald on Sunday only one other case had been taken from the site, despite hundreds of complaints from supporters of convicted criminals. “We don’t set out to be judge and jury. But I’ve felt uneasy about it. There’s certainly evidence there which could be better looked at,” McVicar said.

“I think there needs to be a review of how police procedures are carried out. I’d hate to be sitting in jail, knowing I was innocent, knowing I couldn’t get a re-hearing.”

The Sensible Sentencing Trust removed the Watson case from the website after a supporter of Watson, known only as “Shane” wrote to McVicar and the website master Peter Jenkins. In the December emails obtained by the Herald on Sunday - which were posted to Watson in prison - Jenkins told the anonymous supporter he would pull the Watson material because of the “increasing level of doubt” until a retrial or inquiry is held.

“I believe the point has been reached where an inquiry needs to be held to settle this matter once and for all, and put the public’s mind at rest,” Jenkins wrote.

“I am not convinced of his innocence by any stretch of the imagination, but I believe his guilt does need to be properly and thoroughly tested and proved with all new evidence being taken into account.”

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The Truth names Sergeant Anton ten Hove as the killer of Stephen Bellingham and that he’s a judo black belted “hard man”.

______________________________

Inquiry into police shooting set to continue into 2008
October 30, 2007

Investigations into the police fatal shooting of a hammer-wielding man on a Christchurch street last month are likely to extend well into the new year.

Christchurch police are probing the killing of Stephen Jon Bellingham, 37, who was shot dead by a senior police officer in Stanmore Rd on September 26.

A Police Complaints Authority (PCA) investigation is running parallel to the Christchurch homicide investigation.

Police said Mr Bellingham, originally from Napier, was shot twice after ignoring warnings and advancing on the police officer with the hammer held over his head in a threatening manner.

Police had been called after reports of him smashing up his Linwood flat and attacking cars parked nearby with a claw hammer.

However, conflicting versions have emerged over the way Mr Bellingham was shot, with one couple claiming he was standing still with his hands at his sides and a man saying he was rushing towards the police officer, who fired his police-issue 9mm Glock pistol from a distance of about a metre.

In a brief statement today, Canterbury police district commander Superintendent Sandra Manderson said the homicide probe was continuing.

“The investigation is ongoing and it will be some time before a decision will be made regarding any culpability,” Ms Manderson said.

She confirmed the officer remained off duty but was unable to comment further.

However, Wellington-based PCA investigator Norman Cook said it would be February or March before the authority had completed its initial inquiries and was in a position to address “police policy practice procedures”.

Mr Cook said he’d visited Christchurch and had also met Mr Bellingham’s family in Hawke’s Bay.

He expected police “should be ready in a couple of weeks” to seek a legal opinion on whether the police officer was criminally culpable.

“We’re aware the police have almost completed their investigation,” he said today.

“There are external matters then to be addressed and the authority has yet to decide our ongoing line of investigation.”

Mr Cook said he hoped the investigations wouldn’t drag on.

“We won’t be taking the same length of time that we have in the past,” he said.

“I would imagine we’ll be addressing a final report from the authority even perhaps before the coroner had completed the inquest. “We want to move things along.”

The PCA probe was “making haste slowly” and Mr Cook said the file covered his desk “and will keep me gainfully employed for a wee while yet, I suspect”.

He said it was “in everyone’s interest” to complete inquiries properly as soon as possible.

“But despite our best efforts, it’s still a fairly long process.”

Bellingham family spokesman John Trischler, Mr Bellingham’s uncle, said the family was being kept informed about progress in both inquiries and was unconcerned at the timeframe for a final report.

“We’ll just work through it and comment once we’ve got the report,” Mr Trischler said.

“We’d rather have all the information and get the right result, rather than have a witch-hunt.

“The family would like to see something beneficial come out of Stephen’s death.”

Mr Trischler said tasers were perhaps something the police needed to seriously consider for general issue.

“Things could have been a bit different if they’d had tasers, who knows,” he said.

“But hindsight’s a wonderful thing.”

He said Mr Bellingham’s parents were gradually coming to terms with his loss and appreciated the condolences and messages they’d received from around the country.

————————-

Police back colleague who killed
09 December 2007

The Christchurch police officer who shot dead a man armed with a hammer is unlikely to face criminal charges, say police sources.

They say the officer has justified his actions to an investigation into the September shooting of Stephen Bellingham, 37, showing he followed police guidelines.

However, Canterbury police boss Superintendent Dave Cliff says the homicide investigation into the shooting is under legal review and no decisions have been made about charges.

Bellingham was shot in Stanmore Rd, Linwood, on September 26 while armed with a bell hammer and apparently high on party pills after four days without sleep. He had reportedly been attacking cars.

He advanced on the policeman and was asked to surrender before the shooting. Bellingham was hit twice, in the leg and, fatally, in the chest.

“It would be very hard for them to do anything criminally with him [the officer involved],” a source said. “His actions all fit in with police procedures. The way that he [the officer] went through his interview and everything else … he answered the questions well and justified his actions. Criminally, I don’t think there are too many problems or worries,” he said.

The officer had clearly feared for his and the public’s safety before the shots were fired, he said.

Another senior police source said criminal charges were “unlikely”after a thorough investigation.

The sergeant, who previously received the Commissioner’s Gold Merit Award for confronting a man brandishing a sawn-off shotgun, is understood to be on special leave for at least another month.

If he returns to work he is unlikely to be placed immediately on the frontline, but on other duties until separate coronial and Police Complaints Authority investigations are completed.

These could take up to 18 months.

Cliff declined to comment on the specifics of the investigation.

“A legal review of this investigation has been sought prior to making any decisions. It is not known when this review will be complete. Whilst I am unable to discuss employment issues relating to Officer A, I can advise that he is on leave.”

Cliff said the officer had been offered “support services” following the shooting.

“The investigation team have maintained a close liaison with the family of Mr Bellingham throughout,” he said.

_________________________-

Family unhappy son’s killer cleared by police
21 December 2007

Stephen Jon Bellingham’s family may challenge the police decision not to prosecute the senior police officer who fatally shot their son on a Christchurch street in September.

Releasing a report on the results of the homicide investigation today, Canterbury police district commander Superintendent Dave Cliff said the policeman, known only as “Officer A”, would not face any criminal charges.

A “careful and thorough” homicide investigation had concluded the officer faced no criminal liability.

Mr Bellingham, 37, was fatally shot in Stanmore Rd, Linwood, shortly after 8.30pm on September 26.

Witnesses said Mr Bellingham, 37, was advancing on the officer waving a claw hammer above his head in a threatening manner after attacking and damaging cars parked near his flat. His concerned flatmates had alerted police to his irrational behaviour.

“Police are fully satisfied that in the circumstances the officer was in fear of his life and acting in self-defence and that no less violent means of stopping Mr Bellingham was available to him in those circumstances,” Mr Cliff said.

Police had advised both Mr Bellingham’s family and “Officer A” this morning.

“Officer A” was expected to return to active duty in the new year, he said.

The Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) is still completing its investigation into the shooting. That report isn’t expected until well into the new year.

Clearly unhappy with the decision, the Bellingham family, which has engaged a lawyer to keep a watching brief on the parallel investigations into their son’s death, said today the full report would be carefully studied over the weekend.

Speaking from her Napier business today Mr Bellingham’s mother, Maria, said today’s decision was no surprise after a Sunday newspaper was given leaked information reported the officer was unlikely to be charged.

“We were called to the Napier police station this morning and advised of the decision not to prosecute ‘Officer A’,” she said.

“It doesn’t come as any surprise to us.

“We feel that professionals, whether it be the police or other professions, stick together.”

Mrs Bellingham said the family was aware that the IPCA was still investigating the circumstances of the shooting and would await its conclusions with interest.

“We’re not happy with the decision,” she said. “It doesn’t offer us any closure.”

She said Christmas this year would be a sad time for the Bellingham family.

“Apart from when Stephen was overseas, it’s the first time we won’t have spent Christmas together as an entire family.”

Mrs Bellingham said the police report needed to be studied carefully.

“We’ve been issued with a report this morning and this is something we’ve got to digest over the weekend to find out the facts of what the police have been given from witnesses and the officer involved.”

Asked if the family might consider challenging the police report, Mrs Bellingham said: “We’ll be seeking legal advice.”

Releasing the decision today, Mr Cliff said the homicide investigation had been reviewed independently and police had taken independent legal advice.

He emphasised that the criminal investigation was concluded, but he acknowledged that Mr Bellingham’s death was still subject to a coroner’s inquest “where the complete circumstances of the incident will be presented,” as well as the IPCA inquiry.

“A full debrief will be conducted by police early in 2008 which will look in detail at processes and procedures applied in this case to determine whether any lessons can be learned,” he said.

Mr Cliff said it was a “tragic case” where Mr Bellingham was acting irrationally and violently.

People who had contact with him in the days immediately before the shooting had given evidence that his mental condition and stability were deteriorating.

It was clear, he said, that Mr Bellingham was “deeply disturbed” on the night he was shot.

“There is nothing to adequately explain why his mental condition had deteriorated to that point,” Mr Cliff said.

“As is often the case, the reasons may never be known.”

Mr Cliff stressed the case was a tragedy “for the Bellingham family, the police officers involved and their families”.

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Timing of resignation signals reluctance to lift lid on past
December 16, 2007

Former assistant police commissioner Clint Rickards would presumably want his stance in the final stages of his career to be interpreted as a sign of his never-say-die mentality and his courage under fire. It won’t be.

Even as the report of the Independent Police Conduct Authority was being prepared for public release, Rickards - whose complaints about the conduct of the investigation were brushed aside with a good deal more gentleness than they deserved - was seeking to bolster his case for exculpation and public forgiveness.

He did so in ways that can be most charitably described as disingenuous. First, he verbally attacked - in terms that we will not dignify with repetition here - Louise Nicholas, whose persistent demonstration of real courage rightly earned her the title of the New Zealand Herald’s New Zealander of the Year.

The record will always show that Rickards, along with Brad Shipton and Bob Schollum, were acquitted on charges of raping Nicholas.

But no one can be left in any doubt that a young woman was appallingly treated by men who must have known what they were doing was a grossly reprehensible abuse of power. For Rickards to launch such a graceless attack on a woman he so cruelly wronged only demonstrated the deep level of denial he is in about the damage he has done to her - and to the police force whose reputation he has tarnished.

Adding further insult to injury, in the same radio interview, Rickards thanked leading Maori figures for the support they had shown him during the years of court action and public scrutiny.

The timing of that expression of thanks, which could have been made in any of the 10 months since the delivery of the jury verdict in the rape trial, invites the opinion that Rickards was seeking to blunten the criticism that he knew was coming his way in the IPCA report.

It also - and this is much worse - was a cynical misrepresentation of the “support” he had enjoyed, and a betrayal of the spirit in which it was offered. Rickards knows - or should know - that the Maori concept of tautoko, a concept inadequately rendered in English as “support” - is very different from what pakeha understand by that term. Specifically, and crucially, it does not imply an endorsement of the actions of the person being supported.

As Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples, one of those that Rickards thanked, put it, “supporting Maori is what Maori do”.

Any intelligent reading of what these Maori leaders were doing would not baldly describe it as support: it comes much closer to what pakeha mean when they say, of a loved one, “I know he has done wrong and I don’t for one moment endorse his actions, but I love him for all that and I will not turn my back on him”.

Rickards, though, was happy to let the ambiguity work to his advantage and, in the process, turn the heat onto those who had offered him the hand of friendship.

The only honourable aspect of the entire saga with which Rickards’ name will be forever associated is the conduct of Operation Austin, which resulted in the charges against him and which he called “a shambles” that he “would have been ashamed to have led”.

The public did not need Justice Lowell Goddard to tell them that the “groundbreaking” operation was no such thing - but it is good that she did. It gives the official seal of approval to the fearless, exhaustive and entirely professional conduct of that team.

It is regrettable that Rickards’ resignation was accepted on the eve of disciplinary proceedings that seemed likely to have resulted in his dismissal.

It smacked distastefully of a deal done behind closed doors, and an official reluctance to open the books on the past.

But the resignation does give Rickards the chance to scurry from view and maintain the silence his position demands.

He should take that chance.

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New Zealander of the Year: Louise Nicholas
December 15, 2007

If ever there was a Kiwi battler, it is surely Louise Nicholas.

She grew up in a tough town and faced the toughest of times. She has been reviled, but has shown a rare resilience, turning a life that could have been a shattered ruin into a beacon of hope.

As the Herald considered candidates for New Zealander of the Year, her contribution stood out. It was distinguished by the willingness to suffer deeply personal exposure for the sake of exposing an ugly element in one of our most important public institutions. And it forced all of us to question what indeed is justice.

***

Despite the enthusiastic welcome, Louise Nicholas is tense. She sits in the small sunroom of her Rotorua home, fingers twisting in her lap, face tightening between smiles. I didn’t notice her quietly lock the outside door.

Plainly her fight is not over. Earlier this morning, former Assistant Police Commissioner Clint Rickards gave an interview on Radio Waatea. And after all of it - the publication of her best-selling book, the work of Operation Austin to investigate the dozens of other rape allegations in the Bay of Plenty during the 1980s, the thousands of letters and cards in support of her position, all culminating in Rickards’ resignation from the police force - he still publicly insulted her.

“Louise Nicholas is a liar,” he said. “She needs help.”

Certainly not psychological help. She smiles often, speaks openly about her private life, the years of abuse, her marriage and the successful book tour she finished last week. She could use a little extra childcare for six-month-old son, Luke, but no counselling. Indeed, she about to go to Tauranga to support another rape complainant whose case didn’t make it to court.

Nicholas and her husband, Ross, are convinced that Rickards’ resignation came only after he saw the evidence the inquiry had amassed against him.

“By doing what he has done, it very much confirmed, to me his guilt,” she says. “I do honestly believe that he knew he was going to go down.”

She was also disappointed that the police paid him out - and hurt by Rickards’ personal insinuations. First, that she bought this house with profits from selling her story to women’s magazines: “If only! We moved here before the trial. We got $2000 from Woman’s Day and I tried to give that back.”

Second, that she brought the charges because she didn’t want to see a Maori Police Commissioner.

“That disgusted me,” she says. “I was brought up in a small town that was predominantly Maori. I have the utmost respect for Maoridom.”

For Nicholas the struggle goes back to when she was a pony-mad kid working in the Murupara dairy after school.

When the local policeman called her into the police station she was not alarmed.

He was a good friend of her Dad’s. Which meant that when he pulled down her jeans and raped her, 13-year-old Nicholas felt she had no-one to turn to.

Twenty years later, after being approached by investigative journalist Phil Kitchin, she went public with her allegations of sexual abuse by police that flowed from that first incident until 1987.

Over the decade, Nicholas stood in the witness box seven times, enduring 10 days of cross-examination that probed the most painful details of her life including an allegation of pack rape and use of a baton by three policemen, one of them Rickards.

And although she lost all but one of those cases, and despite the accusations thrown at her by Rickards and others, Nicholas has won in the most important court of all - the court of public opinion. The piles of supportive cards and letters bulge into thousands.

Many of the writers have had brushes with the same police culture that ruined Nicholas’ young life. Some claim rape or sexual abuse themselves, others write of the fear of being approached, others talk about just watching it happen and not knowing what to do, still others simply believe her story and want to help, to thank her. Many come from Maori, “We know ‘cos they say things like ‘Kia Kaha.”‘ Only two - one from Tauranga and one from the Far North - were negative.

Then there are the offers of holiday homes and baches so the family can take a break (”If only we had the time”), the presents, the teddy bears and toys for Luke and the couple’s three well-mannered, sweet-faced girls, Jess, 18 and now milking cows as her mother did before her, Kerriann (16) and McKaela (12).

Ross, who has just arrived home from the chiropractor, brings out a wooden six-wheeler tip truck that arrived for Luke a few days ago. Handmade, painted green and white, signed “No 2 for Luke”. “It’s amazing the people out there, the support and generosity of it all.”

Ross Nicholas met Louise when she was 18 and a telephonist at a Rotorua bank. It was during the brief lull after the Murupara molesting stopped and before the Rotorua policemen found her. She had never had a steady boyfriend, and she liked what she saw.

“My auntie worked there and I think they tried to set me up,” grins Ross. He is a decent, hard-working New Zealander, and you can see immediately why Louise begged him to marry her. Today they run a relaxed but well-ordered home. He calls her “Missus” as a term of endearment, “gives her a tune-up” if she gets down.

They both came from families that did not have connections. There were no lawyers or doctors in their circle. The most important people - and the ones they deferred to in times of crisis- were the police. Ross’s parents were sharemilkers who shifted every year, meaning their son, who was dyslexic, changed schools every year too. Now 43, he still has trouble reading. “But he’s very, very clever,” says his wife. “And I’m good at maths,” adds Ross. He sits there with his can of Coke and his neat greying mullet, playing with his son, adding details to a story that is becoming legend.

Back then, he says, “Louise was a cheerful little thing. And she was modest, held out on me for weeks.” Then she changed. “She was sick all the time, wanted to come with me in the truck on weekends, both days!” Uniformed policemen - guys he knew - banged on the door of her flat. Their sex life dwindled. “Later it all fell into place.”

“Why didn’t you tell me what was going on?” asks Ross, hazel eyes gazing at her over the last of their chicken dinner. Then, answering his own question, ” It was because you were so scared they’d hurt me, beat me up, I’d be a marked man. If I did something silly I wouldn’t be here today.”

When Ross did find out, after Louise confided in his father who had decided to “give her a tune-up” and find out what was wrong, he was horrified. The men who had been molesting her were his mates. “I couldn’t look them in the eye any more. I don’t know how her Dad did it.”

As Ross points out, it was also fear that drove Nicholas to go public: “She had to go out and face the music, face the media, write the book, because she had to protect us,” he says. “Now it’s all out in the open, if anything happened questions would be asked.”

And, he says, she is telling the truth: “She has never changed her story. Never. She wouldn’t put us all through this for nothing.”

Journalist Philip Kitchin met Nicholas in November 2003 after he recovered police records that proved her original rape complaints had been mishandled and buried by the police. Two trials had been aborted because the police witness, John Dewar, had introduced inadmissible evidence.

Kitchin wanted to set the record straight. He suggested that Nicholas begin writing down her experiences, “almost like keeping a diary”. Within a few years that diary, interlaced with Kitchin’s own compelling account of investigating one of the country’s biggest police cover-ups, culminated in the formation of Operation Austin, the trial of Dewar for perverting the course of justice, the publication of My Story, and national fame for Louise.

Because of the name suppressions and inadmissible evidence, the book is crucial to understanding Nicholas’ story. She may be untrained but her descriptions of, for example, the “baton incident” and telling her girls that she had been raped and abused, are triumphs. The book took her more than a year to write, working at home.

“In the end I put in all the real names and left it to the editors at Random House to black out the ones we couldn’t use. Phil wrote the fact stuff. I wrote the story.”

Louise and Ross moved to their comfortable home with its flat TV, black cat and bichon frise puppy , tidy garden and even tidier house, before last year’s highly-publicised Shipton/Schollum/Rickards trial.

Although they loved the country, they were scared to leave their girls at home alone. There had been strange phone calls, “some from nutters”, the odd nasty letter.

Although the police offered a protection programme they preferred to move to Rotorua. Ross works weeks now, driving diggers and bulldozers, putting in roads for logging gangs - and leaving weekends free for trailbiking, often with Kerriann and McKaela. They have an unlisted phone number, both sets of parents are five minutes away, but still Louise keeps a close eye on her daughters, locks the door during the day.

Although Louise and Ross Nicholas are now determined to move on, it is almost impossible to do so. Their address may be confidential, but the letters and requests for help keep coming. How do people get her address? They don’t. “They write to her at ‘Louise Nicholas, Rotorua’; ‘Louise Nicholas, New Zealand’, just plain ‘Louise’ and the letters and cards arrive,” says Ross.

Some writers, including the woman Nicholas supported in Tauranga last week, need her help - and she wants to give it. She knows how it feels to be branded a liar.

On the personal front, Luke is teething. Her mother, Barbara, is ill with cancer that has already invaded her gall bladder and liver. Nicholas is still trying to come to terms with the suicide of her younger brother, Kevin, this year.

And still she retains her essential balance, remembers others. Nick Perry, the head of Operation Austin, recalls how, “the morning after the jury came back with the not guilty verdict for the Shipton/Schollum/Rickards trial, she rang to ask if I was all right and to say that she knew we had done our very best for her”.

Has the process Louise Nicholas started all those years ago been worthwhile? Has her sacrifice made New Zealand a safer place for the next generation of young women? Will her ordeal , which highlighted how badly rape victims are treated , change the way they are treated ?

Maybe. Phil Kitchin points out that for Louise Nicholas’s great fight to have real impact we need political follow-through. Our laws of libel, name suppression and inadmissible evidence need a shake-up.

For Louise, it will take time to leave the door unlocked in the daytime and stop checking on her girls every couple of hours. There are still enemies, hate mail still trickles in. At a book signing a few weeks ago, a student stood up and called her a liar. He turned out to be the son of John Dewar, the cop who betrayed her most of all.

That’s what they all call her, “Liar”. Because in this dirty, secretive game, it is necessarily one person’s word against the other. Once nobody would have believed a small, determined woman against a pack of decorated policemen.

Until now.

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More police sex complaints possible
December 13, 2007

More women could come forward and make formal complaints about historic sexual offending by policemen in the Bay of Plenty, says the detective who led Operation Austin.

It has been revealed the investigation uncovered 50 possible victims, with more than half - at least 25 - making allegations against former policemen Clint Rickards, Brad Shipton, Bob Schollum and John Dewar.

Not all the women wanted further action, but Detective Superintendent Nick Perry said some could “resurface”.

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Officer wins dismissal case
09 December 2007

A POLICEMAN has won a case in the Employment Court which found he was wrongfully dismissed after becoming ill through years of extreme work stress.

The judge found the Taumarunui police area controller actively and wrongly encouraged senior officer Robert Hawkins’ resignation.

In early 2001, the controller, Inspector Don Allan, appointed an officer who had a reputation for bullying staff, particularly Hawkins, to investigate allegations against Hawkins of assault in police cells.

It was one in a series of poor management decisions and breaches of trust that would lead to Hawkins’ stress-related illnesses, including a stomach ulcer and depression.

Judge Coral Shaw’s decision outlines the history of poor management that led to low morale at the Taumarunui station, particularly between 1999 and 2001.

Several complaints had been made about the officer leading the criminal investigation branch at the time, a Detective Sergeant Webb.

Shaw said there was tension between him and staff because of his bullying and intimidation of them.

Webb was appointed to investigate the allegations that Hawkins had assaulted two youths in police cells.

Shaw called the move to involve Webb not only unwise but insensitive and inflammatory. The case against Hawkins was thrown out at trial because of inconsistencies in crown witness evidence.

However, in the months leading up to charges being laid, senior managers, in particular Allan, had openly said Hawkins would be convicted and had no future with the police.

Ongoing advice Hawkins received from police and the Police Association was that he should apply for dismissal from work on medical grounds before any charges were laid against him in relation to the assault allegations.

Shaw said he did this under immense pressure and while suffering the effects of severe stress.

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Waikato’s top policeman, cleared two years ago of an historic rape allegation, is disappointed at not being reappointed district commander.

Police Commissioner Howard Broad announced today that Superintendent Alan Boreham was the new district commander.

Superintendent Kelvin Powell was accused of raping a then-serving policewoman at her 21st birthday party in Rotorua in 1984.

He was suspended when the allegation surfaced at the start