(For the overseas crew, for context…) The New Zealand media has been dominated over the last few days with the outcome of a major trial. Three police, including the current Assistant Commissioner, were accused of a very unpleasant group sexual assault some 20 years ago. They were found not guilty. The same three men were recently found not guilty of another, similar, sexual assault. It has come out since the verdict that two of the accused were already in prison, serving time for a third (similar) sexual assault for which they had been convicted.
The legal system is not designed to protect women. It is designed to protect everyone.
It sucks that it has to be this way, but on the evidence I’ve seen, Clint Rickards should be walking free. The evidence of guilt is simply not strong enough to be beyond reasonable doubt.
Allegations of sexual assault and of rape are always hard to prosecute. Such allegations often come down to contrary versions of events (“It was rape” vs. “It was consensual”). Choosing between them is a conundrum the legal system is ill-equipped to solve.
The law has to look after everyone. Its fundamental workings must generalise across every kind of transgression and still deliver acceptable results. It is wrongheaded to be disappointed in the legal system for failing the complainants in these cases. As far as I’m concerned, the system worked admirably. The verdict may taste unpleasant, but it indicates that our legal system is doing exactly what it needs to be doing.
4 thoughts on “The Law Does What It Does”
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You might want to correct this slightly: the 3 accused were found not guilty at both trials.
Just to echo Mr Ritchie – Rickards’ has not been convicted of any offence. You may want to edit.
No Right Turn has recently made a very good point about this trial. The problem isn’t about juries not being told of previous convictions of defendents. Hell, it’s not even about the sexually violent culture of the NZ police (at least in the eighties).
The real issue is the failure of the Police to properly investigate themselves, both then and now.
Coming in the same weeks as the Police Complaints Authority annoucing it is chronically underfunded.
That is what needs to change.
Gah! Crucial “not” missed out. One might say that was a Freudian slip.
Corrected.
I think in fact, in spite of the uncomfortable verdict, the publicity around this trial WILL serve to protect women. All of these alleged sexual assaults, as you say, fell into the grey area between rape and consensual sex (a grey area many of us have encountered at some stage in our lives)… women who get involved with any of these blokes in the future will probably be a bit wary around them.
I’m not with Dick Hubbard’s moral stance either, and don’t think having engaged in group sex a long time ago should rule Rickards out as police commissioner, but what DOES bother me, is that someone with such an aggressively sexist attitude is likely to resume work in such an influential role… this definitely WILL NOT help protect women!