John Haigh QC acted for Rickards. He was tall, grave, lugubrious. He led the defence team, and imposed his intelligence on proceedings. His oratory was compelling. But the star performer was actually Schollum’s lawyer, Paul Mabey QC. The only equivocal thing about him was his name. A small, discreet man who made you think of Le Carré’s favourite spy, George Smiley, Mabey was meticulous and devastating in cross-examination. Nicholas hated him, as well as Haigh. She said of them when I interviewed her that afternoon by the fire in the Hawke’s Bay: ‘Nasty bastards. There was no need to be so brutal. They can burn in hell for all I care.’ But they were defending their clients, who had been accused of heinous crimes.
Christchurch solicitor Brent Stanaway appeared for the Crown. An aristocratic fellow who walked with a very high step, Stanaway was dressed so fine in a suit tailored from a bolt of beautiful French fabric — black, with a very light red polka-dot. He came across as arch and rather louche, and was no match for Haigh and Mabey. Or Rickards: his cross-examination was poor. They’d once worked together when Rickards was working undercover in Invercargill. Stanaway put it to Rickards that he’d learned to become a ‘practised liar’ as an undercover cop. But this was absurd. Rickards pointed out that he’d very often given evidence to Stanaway when they worked together on prosecuting drug dealers, and his word had been good enough for him then.
The lawyers framed the narrative, gave it shape. But the most important people in Courtroom 12 were the accused, and their accuser. Louise Nicholas gave evidence on day two of the trial.
3
She didn’t look well. She didn’t look at all well. She was small, narrow, thin; she looked starved. She later told me that she lived on coffee and cigarettes during the trial.
The judge removed the public, and blinds were put over the courtroom window.
She began by telling Stanaway about her early life in Murupara, and moving to Rotorua as a teenager. She got a job at the BNZ, and found a flat. She talked about buying a bedroom suite on HP from Smith & Brown, playing indoor cricket with the BNZ social team, forking out her share of the $130 weekly rent. A normal life; until one night after work she went to the police bar with friends, and met Shipton.
They talked. She was just his type: she had a pulse. Shipton and Rickards, she said, began coming to her house uninvited.
She said, ‘The reason they were coming round was for sex. My heart would just drop. I didn’t want them there. I said, “I don’t want you to do this.” Never at any stage did I consent to anything.’
Stanaway asked, ‘What happened?’
She said, ‘They would start by undressing me, normally the bottom half, then theirs. They’d put me on the floor on my back. Shipton would hop on first. Rickards would put his penis in my mouth. And they’d swap, or put me in other positions like on all fours. That’s just what happened and there was nothing I could do about it.’
Shipton arrived once on his own. Stanaway asked, ‘What happened?’
She said, ‘It was in the lounge. It was just sex. Sex.’ The word sounded flat, emptied out.
Stanaway asked, ‘When did these visits occur?’
‘When I was off work or sick.’
‘Was that pre-arranged?’
‘No.’
‘How did they know you were home?’
Nicholas said, ‘I wouldn’t have a clue.’ Neither did anyone else.
4
And then she told her harrowing story about ‘the Rutland Street incident’. It was listened to in utter silence.
‘It was a lovely, hot day in January,’ she began. She was wearing the white muslin dress her boyfriend, Ross — later her husband — had bought her that summer in Whangamata. She was walking home from work. Schollum drove by, and offered her a lift home. Instead, he took her to a red-brick house at the end of the cul de sac in Rutland Street. She recognised Shipton and Rickards on the balcony. She said, ‘I had grave reservations.’
They went inside. She said she was led into a bedroom. ‘I kept saying, “I don’t want to do this.”’
Stanaway asked, ‘What happened?’
What she said happened came out in a long anguished moan sans punctuation, and it sounded like this: ‘Schollum laid me on the bed on my back and got on top of me and had sexual intercourse with me and while that was happening Rickards is on my left and he’s naked and he puts his penis in my mouth and this went on for some time and then Schollum got off and licked my vagina while I’m still giving Rickards oral sex and then he moved away and then Shipton got on and then Schollum turned up and took Rickards’ place and it seemed like it was going on forever and then it was all finished and then I saw Shipton with this police baton in one hand and Vaseline in the other and I said no fucking way mate no fucking way and I’m moving back I can’t go any further I’m up against the bedroom wall and he had this dirty smirk on his face and then I was on all fours and then he . . .’
When she finished her story, collapsing into sobs, Justice Tony Randerson adjourned the court for 15 minutes. I went outside for a cigarette. People who didn’t smoke went out for a cigarette. No one talked.
5
Back in court, evidence was read from Nicholas’s ex-flatmate. She was 17 when they lived together; Nicholas, 18. She said, ‘Louise was a really happy, fun person, and was
