Crime, corruption and loyalty

I seldom watch crime stories on TV. It is not my thing. But Consent, a television drama screened this week, about the story of Louise Nicholas, raped by three policemen, the first time when she was only 13, was shown as one of a series of New Zealand documentaries and I thought that it may be worth trying. It proved to be an absolutely riveting film. Apart from the sordid account of brutal rapes, which the film makers handled discreetly, it touched on the dark side of New Zealand life. Murupara, where Louise Nicholas grew up, and where she was raped by the local policeman and a friend of the family seemed like an idyllic small timber town, in the midst of beautiful green landscape, a paradise for children. But the policeman, a happy family man considered the sexual assault of a defenceless young girl as his rightful due. The girl's family didn't know, or chose not to know what happened, turned a blind eye to it, and didn't know how to handle it. When as a young woman Louise Nicholas moved to Rotorua, three policemen raped her together with her flat mate. Again, the policemen, large, threatening presences, didn't see anything wrong with their actions. The police superintendent, the senior police officer in charge of these men found himself in a difficult and embarrassing position. He had sympathy for the girl complainant, but he also felt loyalty to his policemen and the good name of the police. So he did what he, in his simple-minded way thought was the best, would do least harm, and perverted the course of justice, to use the legal jargon. He presented his evidence in the first trial in such a way that the trial had to be aborted. At the retrial he omitted evidence which would have secured a conviction. The guilty officers got away scot free. The officer who raped the 13 year old girl was even awarded $20,000 compensation for legal costs. It was the police superintendent, who out of loyalty for his police officers and the police protected the guilty parties who was convicted. Watching the film there was no doubt where our sympathies should lie, and indeed the rights and wrongs of the matter are very clear. But the world of Murupara and Rotorua, where such atrocities could be perpetrated and tolerated was left unexplored. Violence against women is still a burning issue in New Zealand. I hope that there are no men left who think of young women as meat that can be abused with impunity, but the reality is that there is a dark underbelly of New Zealand society that was ignored, and very likely is still ignored.