Police rapist Brad Shipton dies after long battle with dementia, victim says ‘good riddance’

Warning: This story involves sexual crimes and may be disturbing.

A disgraced detective who was exposed as a sexual predator in an explosive case that changed New Zealand’s police force has died.

Brad Shipton, who had spent most of the past decade in a retirement home suffering from early-onset dementia, died in April. He was 65.

His death came 20 years after he was first publicly accused, along with other police officers, of the rape of Louise Nicholas in the 1980s and 1990s.

Her allegations – including assault with a police baton – prompted an extensive police investigation, Operation Austin, and a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the culture of the police and how sexual assault cases were investigated.

Shipton and his co-defendants Clint Rickards and Bob Schollum claimed the group sex with Nicholas was consensual. The trio were found not guilty at a 2006 trial.

However, the jury did not know that Shipton and Schollum were already in prison for raping another woman in Mount Maunganui in 1989.

The victim of the Mt Maunganui case, who was just 20 at the time of the attack, signed up for Operation Austin in 2004.

According to her evidence at the trial, she was lured to a lifeguard tower on the pretext of a lunch date with Shipton.

Instead, she was handcuffed, raped, forced to perform oral sex and assaulted with a police baton by Shipton and other men, including Schollum.

Sentencing Shipton and Schollum to eight and a half years and eight years in prison respectively, Judge Ron Young described them as “corrupt police officers” who treated the victim “like a piece of meat”.

The courage of the women who came forward also led to the Royal Commission of Inquiry, known as the Bazley Report, making 64 recommendations to improve police culture and improve the way victims were treated by the criminal justice system.

Louise Nicholas’s only comment on Shipton’s death was: “To me he’s been dead a long time”.

But the woman whose evidence led to Shipton’s rape conviction said hearing of his death had made her reflect on the enormous damage he had caused.

“I would encourage women who were attacked by him to bury the damage with him. To know they are safe. We no longer have to look over our shoulders.”

She told how she came across Shipton in a bakery in Paeroa, not long after he was released from prison. However, he did not recognize her.

“I went up to him and said, ‘What a beautiful day.’ He said, ‘Yes, it is.’ And I replied, ‘It must be really nice to have that taste of freedom, right Brad,'” the woman told the newspaper Herald.

“I was shaking, it was like an out-of-body experience. If I had been wise, I probably would have dealt with him. It took me months to get over that.”

She paid tribute to Operation Austin investigators, who she said transformed the police force – and the way victims of sexual assault were treated.

Despite her feelings towards Shipton, his victim also wanted to acknowledge the loss of his family.

‘They too have gone through hell. But the number of victims, the damage he caused to so many people, is much greater and justifies marking his death.

“Good riddance.”

Donna Johnson was another woman who accused Shipton of forcing her into a sex act in the 1990s, when he was a police officer, and of being intimidated by his colleagues into keeping quiet.

She also welcomed the news of his death.

“Shipton; New Zealand police officer and Tauranga city councilor with friends in very high places. You never fooled me or my community,” Johnson said.

“Those who knew you, knew you very well. My world is a better place without you and your people.”

Jared Savage is an award-winning journalist covering crime and justice issues, with a particular interest in organized crime. He joined the Herald in 2006, and is the author of Gangland And Gangster paradise.