Disgraced former Tauranga Police detective and convicted rapist Brad Shipton is reportedly suffering from dementia and his behaviour is causing community concern.
It is understood the 55-year-old has been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, a degenerative condition with no cure, which over time affects behaviour, speech and movement, NZ Herald reports.
Former detective Brad Shipton.
He last year re-entered the media spotlight for his involvement in the 27-year-old case of missing Tauranga woman Luana Williams.
Now, amid the health rumours, he is causing concern by hanging around the grounds of Fairhaven Primary School in Te Puke, and allegedly shoplifting from a local supermarket.
Headmaster Paul Hunt says school staff are aware of the issue.
'We have put things in place and we are dealing with it,” says Paul. 'As far as the school is concerned we are dealing with it.”
Shipton is unemployed and lives alone in a Tauranga flat.
He was jailed in 2005 for his part in the pack rape of a Mount Maunganui woman and granted parole in 2008.
Conditions included that he gave no interviews and lived at a certain address until his sentence end date in January 2014.
The jail time stemmed from allegations made in 2004 by Louise Nicholas, that three men – assistant police commissioner Clint Rickards, Brad Shipton and salesman Bob Schollum –raped a teenager and violated her with a police baton while all three were policemen in the late 1980s.
Louise said she sought help at the time of the incidents, but was ignored. Police later opened an investigation.
In July 2005 four men, including Shipton and Schollum, were found guilty of raping a 20-year-old woman in a beach hut in Mount Maunganui in 1989.
At the sentencing in 2005 the judge said both men were corrupt police officers whose arrogance knew no bounds.
Shipton was sentenced in August 2005 to eight years' jail for two charges of rape and three years for abduction for sex and unlawful sexual connection.
In March 2006, Rickards, Shipton and Schollum were found not guilty of raping and sexually abusing Louise Nicholas in 1985 and 1986.
In March 2007, Rickards, Shipton and Schollum were found not guilty of kidnapping and indecently assaulting a 16-year-old girl in Rotorua in the 1980s.
Media reports say Shipton has found God and now attends church twice a week.
4 comments
Jackie
Posted on 25-08-2014 13:56 | By Clara
They do say "what comes around, goes around"
In all honesty...
Posted on 25-08-2014 21:00 | By GreertonBoy
If he has dementia, how would he know he has found god? Sounds like a bit of the old 'plead insanity' trick.... God help us!
Wisechief
Posted on 26-08-2014 12:05 | By Wise Chief
As long time Mount resident who was privileged to much information from single women on benefits at the time of the offending by this man and quite a number of still incumbent officers both make and female it is a grave miscarriage of justice that many other victims out of fear of losing their children via social welfare at the time did not report their rapes.One of them committing suicide an another having a child. Thus many have wale free without exposure. To arm police will see more an more such crimes go by the wayside the threat of death to their victims never likely to be reported as in the case of Louise Nicholas.
Wise Chief.....
Posted on 30-08-2014 16:30 | By groutby
Maybe if you are indeed privelidged to "certain information" in regard to other events involving people involving our police force, then your duty as a responsible citizen is surely to put up right now...to the correct department for investigation...we need more faith in the integrity of our police force, it is dwindling rapidly. It's over to you.....as to Shipton's mental state...well, maybe post number 1 is right on the money?..let's all hope he isn't given the opportunity to ruin someone else's life also.
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