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New Zealand Judge Blinds Jury to Prevent Conviction of Pack Raping Police

author: dk
Apr 03, 2006 00:15

The trial was riddled with lies, inside and out.

New Zealand "Judge" makes sure Jury is unaware of facts of case involving Pack Raping Police.

Justice Tony Randerson is a lowlife who trivialises Rape.

Steve Braunias heard - and watched - all the evidence at an extraordinary three-week rape trial which ended on Friday with the acquittal of three police officers. Justice was served, he reports, but was the trial really about rape charges?

The past three weeks in courtroom 12 at the High Court of Auckland took hold like a plague. There was definitely some kind of sickness, an obvious suffering. The least of it is that one of the lawyers broke out in a rash on the final day. His face looked bad, very bad. A great many other people - family and friends of the defendants - looked worse. They were the walking wounded, but there was nothing surprising about that. The trial was riddled with lies, inside and out.

It was presented as the allegations made by Louise Nicholas against three men - Clint Rickards, Brad Shipton, and Bob Schollum -who were serving police officers 20 years ago, in Rotorua. She claimed they raped her and once sexually violated her with a standard police-issue baton, varnished a deep red, 30cm long, designed to cause harm. Very shocking, utterly obscene, but the real point of the trial - of why it was so notorious, of what it meant -was elsewhere.

The jury took three days to deliver their verdict. It had been an unbearable wait; the air swelled, raised itself to boiling point; something had to break. It broke at quarter to three on Friday afternoon. Or not quite, because that was when word went around that a verdict was due, and the courtroom filled to capacity. Five minutes passed in complete silence. Silence that long picks up everything around it - hope, fear, anguish, hysteria. And then the jury came in, and delivered verdicts of not guilty on every charge.

Nicholas fled the court: she was a ghost leaving the room. The three defendants wept for joy: they may have seen the last of her. And that's where it ended, in an upstairs courtroom that seemed to shrink and contract, until it posed as a kind of cell, with its worn blue carpet, its mauve doors, its stale oxygen. Release, at last. All trials take on a life of their own; a slow life, usually, the evidence measured out in endless small doses, and there had been 10 days of that in courtroom 12. But there was always more to it than the fact of the trial. Justice Tony Randerson put the matter extremely well when he addressed the court after the verdicts. "This trial was relatively straightforward," he said, "but complicated by outside events swirling around in the world."

You could very easily describe the trial as a nonsense, monstrous and grotesque, given shape, form and direction by the media. Time to roll out a cliche: media interest was intense. Why, when it was a "relatively straightforward rape" trial?

Because it involved three cops, including Rickards, the assistant commissioner of police, groomed and ambitious for the top job in the country. Because it really was scandalous - a reporter had looked into the 1995 police inquiry of Nicholas's allegations, showed her the documents, and she went public, saying she "felt duped something shocking". Because it led to the arrest of Rickards, Schollum and Shipton, and a prosecution case which you could at least describe as thorough - so thorough (the time, the resources, the expense) that it led to a popular notion that in some deep sense this was a blood-letting, politically motivated, of an abusive police culture.

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Comments

The truth is,,
Posted by: dk at Apr 03, 2006 01:18

The truth is, if people knew New Zealand used AGENT ORANGE to make Dairy Pasutre for 50 years it would be evacuated if it was in USA. It is not "clean & Green" it is in fact a toxic hellhole that has sold highly poisonous food products to unsuspecting Americans for years, Got Cancer?,, maybe you ate something from New Zealand? like milk cheese or butter?

Snoopy says
Posted by: Snoopy at Apr 03, 2006 16:45

of course teh big story here is that Schollum and Shipton were already in prison after being found guilty in another very similiar rape trial last year. The court supressed that and its still ilegal to publish this info in New Zealand. The defence lawyers were allowed to bring up the past and character of Louise Nicholas but no one was allowed to bring up the fact that two of the defendents in her trial were currently serving long prison sentences for raping other women while they were police officers. Dozens of cops based in the Rotorua Police District have been investigated for rape and at least four have been convicted. Other trials are still continuing. The NZ Goverment is also holding a commission of Inquiry into the widespread rape culture among that group of police in the 80s and 90s. All of this is still supressed in NZ due to court orders preventing anyone from publishing any of it. which is why it should be published far and wide outside of New Zealand

New Zealand conspiracy
Posted by: Highland Wolf at Apr 07, 2006 19:12

"The truth is, if people knew New Zealand used AGENT ORANGE to make Dairy Pasutre for 50 years it would be evacuated if it was in USA. It is not "clean & Green" it is in fact a toxic hellhole that has sold highly poisonous food products to unsuspecting Americans for years, Got Cancer?,, maybe you ate something from New Zealand? like milk cheese or butter?"

Yes, quite, we're fully, like trying to poison all of you Yanks with our carcinagenic milk - this is easily backed up by the overall cancer rates in New Zealand being significantly lower than in the U.S.....the thing is we export all our cancer to America, so we don't get it.

Oh, and we also use slave labour too, which the American Government has to combat with huge tarrifs and agricultural subsidies. It's a brave and wonderfull government that's prepared to practially double the cost of basic food items for American consumers so that a few farmers can be kept in good jobs and not have to compete in the real world with likes of evil ol' New Zealand. I mean, there's like 4,000,000 of us. We're planning our invasion now and you won't be able to stop us, even though you have an army the size of our adult population because we've given you all our cancer and agent orange - WATCH OUT AMERICA, WE'RE COMING FOR YOU!

This is exactly why Americans should NEVER...
Posted by: dk at Apr 07, 2006 23:17

This is exactly why Americans should never listen to a "kiwi"/New Zealander,, I enter sub edits to expose the crap people they really are, and this was probably posted by some kiwi pack raoing cop.........

Posted by: Highland Wolf at Apr 07, 2006 19:12
"The truth is, if people knew New Zealand used AGENT ORANGE to make Dairy Pasutre for 50 years it would be evacuated if it was in USA. It is not "clean & Green" it is in fact a toxic hellhole that has sold highly poisonous food products to unsuspecting Americans for years, Got Cancer?,, maybe you ate something from New Zealand? like milk cheese or butter?"

Yes, quite, we're fully, like trying to poison all of you Yanks with our carcinagenic milk ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

,, ACTUALLY ALREADY BEEN DONE, for years, I have NZ Gov't documents to show USA FDA REJECTING 245-T contaminated milk several times as late as 1993,,,,,,,

- this is easily backed up by the overall cancer rates in New Zealand being significantly lower than in the U.S.....AND HERE FOLKS WE SEE THE REAL "KIWI",, Following CANCER STATS RELEASED,, NEW ZEALAND, "The Clean Green One",, TOPS USA & ISREAL (worlds # 2-3)

the thing is we export all our cancer to America, so we don't get it.,,,,,,,,,(Don't forget Britain and several other countries,,,,,,,,,,,)

Oh, and we also use slave labour too,,,,,, (fuckin' A),,,,,,,

which the American Government has to combat with huge tarrifs and agricultural subsidies.,,,,,,,,,,,,only because you let them, your "Products were extremely toxic anyway? (maybe they knew?),,,,,,,,

It's a brave and wonderfull government that's prepared to practially double the cost of basic food items for American consumers so that a few farmers can be kept in good jobs and not have to compete in the real world with likes of evil ol' New Zealand.,,,,,,,,,,

oh no doubt we yanks have a bad gov't, and atleast we try to fix it, shall we discuss your pack raper "gov't"?

I mean, there's like 4,000,000 of us.,,,,,,,,,, another total LIE, over 1 million "kiwis" have split because the Real Name of New Zealand is AOTEAROA,,, According to Her Majesty Queen Liz 2, the tobacco dealer bitch that bumped off Di?,,,,,,

We're planning our invasion now and you won't be able to stop us,,,,,,,,,,,, but your lesbian PM sold your "Air Farce" (all 16 airplanes) to the Pakistanis,,, how?

even though you have an army the size of our adult population because we've given you all our cancer and agent orange - WATCH OUT AMERICA, WE'RE COMING FOR YOU!

No mate,, I, dk am coming for all of you, I am going to destroy New Zealand simply by telling the truth.

fuck you very much mr. policeman (yankee cops are amazed at your lot),,, (that's a bad thing). :>

Deranged
Posted by: Sacha at Apr 08, 2006 02:13

Note that DK has been banned from Indymedia Aotearoa (=New Zealand) for his consistently deranged and abusive comments. The man needs help.

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New Zealand Judge Blinds Jury to Prevent Conviction of Pack Raping Police