Friday, March 09, 2007

United We Stand, Divided We Fall

And if we are three policemen who all keep out story the same, and tell our wives to go along with it then away from prison we remain. (Unless you stuffed up in a different case and ended up there anyway)

Last night in Wellington and Auckland were the protests about the not guilty verdicts handed down in the recent case against Schollum, Shipton and Rickards. I had hoped to attend but due to one being busy and having other events I could not. However I was driving past the Police Station/Civic Square about half six, where I saw a police front of females outside the front door to the cop shop, and as we were waiting at the lights, a male officer came out and obviously told them that the protesters would be no trouble now as they all went inside.

When I originally heard the news I was furious, I was shaking with anger and also felt so upset for that poor woman who had had to relive that moment over and over again for years, and then in court, to have her rapists aquitted. The fact that two were jail already does not serve justice, as they are not in jail for their rape on her.

Rickards should be in jail in my (and many others) opinion, I know that he has been declared an innocent man through the justice system, but I do not believe that he his, nor do I have to. He can not go back to being district commander, assistant commissioner and he can kiss away his chances of being Police Commissioner, as we can not have a Police officer in such positions when such a large number of the public despise, detest and distrust him.

We certainly need to be careful about how treat the Police currently, not all of them are rapists. Not all of them man handle and abuse people. Not all of them are on power trips. However there are some who are and they should not be in the Police Force and without a true Police watchdog in NZ it is our job to ensure that any cases get reported.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

not every woman who makes a rape complaint is lying either, but we can;t assume that they are all telling the truth either.

Yet we don;t presume that we should charge those who do make false claims, or make them spend $600K defending themselves.

and noone, no matter how much you want to beleive, knows what actually happened other than those who were there (or were not actually htere if it never happened), so its interesting how many women seem to just 'know' they are guilty, yet the jury did not.

let it go, there are so many important things in the world to focus on and expend energy looking at other than what may or may not have happened 20 yrs ago in rotorua.

Anonymous said...

We have seen in the last few days some of societies attitudes towards women. Your reaction is so obviously pro women that I applaud you.

It's time the true story of rape in this country was told.

The "first line of defense" is the police and the culture of police is not so very different to the culture of NZ society.

As it is the police who make the decision whether or not to prosecute cases of rape, their attitude towards women, the underlying theory and philosophy they hold about women in general, is vital to their fair treatment of victims of rape.

Helen Clark's enquiry into the police's handling of complaints against them makes for some interesting reading !

Sophia said...

Out of 100 rapes, only 10 are reported, out of those 10 - only 3 make it to court, and out of those three, only one secures a conviction.

Food for thought?

Anonymous said...

The most terrible thing Sophia, is that its been the same since the seventies!

Keith said...

sophia, Id want to know exactly how someone came up with those figures.

in 2003 there were 1,678 rape convictionss, that implies there were 167800 rapes.

if you're going to chuck those kind of figures around you'd really want to be pretty sure of your facts.

Just my opinion said...

The rate for male rape is far lower Sophia. Indeed both are issues that should be looked into further.