Louise Nicholas

During the investigation, Nicholas named three further men as co-assailants, Assistant Police Commissioner Clint Rickards and former policemen Brad Shipton and Bob Schollum.

The case was subject to a high level of public debate about suppression orders in New Zealand Courts, and admissibility of evidence after a Dominion Post article in 2004.

The evidence that at the time of the trial two of the three men were serving jail sentences for an unrelated rape of another woman in the 1980s was suppressed by the Courts in accordance with New Zealand law.

[9] After the end of the second case, suppression orders were lifted and there was widespread publicity given to the fact that Shipton and Schollum had been convicted in 2005 of unlawful sexual connection.

[12] Nicholas has worked as a survivor advocate for Rape Prevention Education[13] and has served on the Tauiwi Caucus of the Executive Committee of Te Ohaakii a Hine – National Network Ending Sexual Violence Together.

Nicholas was then given government funding for a year to collect the stories of other sexual assault and violence victims for schools, health professionals and policy makers.

Nicholas' own story and her public advocacy during this role allowed other nations to discuss whether they needed better education and more political and judicial coverage on sexual violence.

In 2015 she was the recipient of the Anzac of the Year Award and in the 2015 Queen's Birthday Honours she was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to the prevention of sexual violence.